Lethal Mutation: A Tails Fanfic REMASTERED
by Tailsisreal
Summary: Completely remastered version of my original epic. Tails has long been one of the lucky few to actually benefit from his body’s mutations, but is that luck about to end? Entire Sonic X cast.
1. Chapter 1: The Freak

**Lethal Mutation: A Tails Fanfic REMASTERED**

 **Foreword**

Ten years ago I wrote and published this as my first story ever. It has been by far the most successful story I've ever written, easily surpassing all my later ones combined with just under 100,000 hits and over 350 reviews by this 10th anniversary mark. And while I personally feel like my days of writing fan fiction ended long ago, I've always been drawn back to this story over the years. Reading it again takes me back to the time in my life when I first wrote it. I was just an ambitious boy at the time, freed for the first time as I moved from home and into a college dorm. I look back, and it seems like things were so simple then. My, how much can change in just a decade...

If any of you reading this were around when I was still actively writing back then, you may remember that only a year or so later my father unexpectedly passed away, followed closely by my best friend. For me, that marked the end of my innocent period. Things were never the same after that, and I gradually faded out of many things I once had a passion for including relationships, my college degree and my drive to write. That's where I left all my formerly loyal readers, at least. Schedules slipped at first, updates came longer and longer apart, and promises where ultimately broken. Then I just disappeared entirely, too ashamed to even answer the messages of concerned readers.

But life since then has been so much more than I could have ever imagined. I married my high school sweetheart, and, although I'd be lying to say we've been perfect for each other all the time, I've found a deep companionship in her that my younger self could have never appreciated. We've had three beautiful children that have brought out a love inside myself that I just can't describe. Sadly, tragedy also hasn't been done with me yet, either. We lost our firstborn, my only son, to a very severe birth defect in which he spent his first five months of life in a hospital far away from home. And I thought the pain of losing my father had been difficult to bear... But I have two wonderful daughters now and a vastly more mature outlook on life in all its aspects, both the beauty and the pain.

Which brings me back to this story. In many ways, I feel like this was the big event that really started it all. It's my first and still most successful endeavor that I have seen through from start all the way to finish. Is it sad that I attribute such nostalgic importance to a silly fanfic? Perhaps. Fact is, though, when I read it again in the present day, I am disgusted with so much of it that I can barely stand to continue. It's like a save file from a game that used to be my favorite, but in which I only ever achieved a measly sixty percent completion. It's full of overly long sentences that drone on and on with unnecessary descriptions and terrible flow. It's like I'm trying to ram my story down the reader's throat in many, many places, particularly where my characters react emotionally. And still some parts of the story I cringe to read because I simply didn't know what I was writing about then, but I have a much better understanding of those things now.

So, for the tenth year anniversary of this story, I'm returning to my keyboard at least one last time to rewrite my previous best. Hopefully, after all these years of maturity and practice via forum role playing and life experience, I can make this story far more entertaining than it previously was with much fewer mistakes and an overall better and more natural flow. To be clear, I'm not rewriting this to change the original story in any significant way plot-wise, but many scenes may be freely added, removed or altered based on what makes the story better as a whole. So, whether you enjoyed the original Lethal Mutation way back then or are perhaps discovering this story for the first time just now, I thank you for reading this and hope you enjoy this definitive edition of my personal classic.

 **Chapter 1: The Freak**

 _What a beautiful day,_ Tails thought to himself as he strolled along the street in downtown Station Square. He was feeling glad that he'd chosen to volunteer to run into town for some groceries this afternoon. Normally such a menial task would be Ella's or Mr. Tanaka's job, but both of them had been unusually busy with preparations for the big trip coming up this weekend. Tails had been more than happy to help out any way he could, and, like his brother, Sonic, he enjoyed any chance he got to get out and stretch his legs a bit.

 _It's strange how easy it is to forget sometimes that this isn't my world. Everything feels pretty much the same. The warm sun, the crisp air, and all the people just walking around doing their own things,_ Tails pondered. _Well, I guess that back home, all these people would instead be assorted anthropomorphic animals, but after being on Earth this long it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. Heh, listen to yourself, Miles. At this rate, you'll convince yourself that you don't really want to gather all the Chaos Emeralds and go home anymore. I guess, more than any of the others, I might have my reasons... But that was all a long time ago, before I met Sonic._

Tails checked his watch Chuck had given him for his last birthday in order to avoid letting his mind wander back to that unhappy period in his life. He was making good time, even if he was just walking back to Chris' home. At this rate, he could afford a short break and still be back long before Ella needed the groceries to make supper. So he sat the groceries down on a park bench and took a seat beside them. He sighed in contentment as he closed his eyes and just listened to the ambient noises around him. There was the sound of light traffic moving around the park's square, birds chirping and flying about the parks' trees, the laughter and squeals of little children out playing. It was all so very peaceful and serene.

"I said hand it over, Four Eyes!"

His eyes were startled open at the gruff intrusion to his relaxing moment. Tails glanced around for the source of the voice and spotted two boys standing in the grass not far from his bench.

"Come on, Mitch! My mom said if I lose my allowance one more time, she's going to stop giving me any!" the thin boy in glasses begged as he cowered from the other boy's menacing glare.

"Well that's your problem, not mine! Now gimme!" the larger, slightly older boy growled unsympathetically.

"I... I..." the younger boy tried to back away slowly. "N-no! T-this isn't your money! It's mine!"

"And just how are you going to stop me from taking it? Huh, Four Eyes?" The bully quickly swiped the glasses off the younger boy's face.

"Nooo! Stop! You'll break them!" the younger boy cried in panic.

"Hey, leave him alone!" Tails finally couldn't watch anymore without intervening. He left the groceries behind on the bench as he rushed to the little boy's aid.

The moment he heard Tails shout, the bully turned in surprise. Seeing someone heading towards him, Mitch dropped the stolen glasses and quickly bolted across the park.

Tails really wanted to chase down the bully and give him the punishment he deserved, but he knew he couldn't. He could imagine the headline news already, 'Station Square's Greatest Hero's Sidekick Pummels Child in Downtown Park'. Tails clenched his fist in annoyance at being forced to show restraint, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

"Here you go," Tails reached down instead and handed the other boy back his glasses.

"Th-thanks!" the younger boy smiled and stared in awe at being rescued by such a celebrity. "He'll be even more mad at me tomorrow, though. I bet nobody ever bullies you. You and Sonic are so cool! I love watching you guys fight Eggman on TV!"

"Heh, thanks!" Tails replied with a thumbs up. "But, actually, I totally understand what being bullied feels like. Back before I met Sonic..."

"There you are, Carson!" a woman in a waitress outfit shouted as she hurried over. "You are supposed to be waiting for me at the bus stop on the corner after school, remember?"

"I know mom, but Mitch chased me again and tried to take my money!" the boy quickly defended himself as he turned to face the newcomer. "But look who came to save me! It's Tails!"

"Oh gracious! My apologies, Tails. I know big heroes like you don't really have time to stop squabbling kids, but I thank you for looking after my son anyways," the mother seemed both surprised and appalled at the story she was hearing. "One of these days, I hope he will learn to defend himself. I keep telling him that the best way to get rid of a bully is to stand up to them."

"But I did, mom!" Carson interjected loudly. "I told Mitch no, but he just grabbed my glasses and..."

"Your glasses?" the mother quickly interrupted as she snatched the item from the boy and inspected them. "Oh no! Carson, you let these get stepped on! Now the lenses are all cracked! Do you have any idea how expensive those are? I'm already working two jobs just to pay rent! You have to be more careful!"

"It wasn't my fault!" Carson yelled back angrily. "Mitch broke them because I told him no just like you wanted me to!"

The woman sighed as she placed the broken spectacles in her purse. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to put the blame on you. Mommy is just a bit stressed out trying to make ends meet," she quickly apologized to her son. "But you'll have to find a solution to this Mitch problem on your own, dear. I just can't get off work any sooner to pick you up."

"...I know," the boy hung his head in disappointment.

"Say goodbye to Mr. Tails, Carson. We can't afford to miss the next bus or I'll be late to my other job," the mother quickly ended the discussion as she started to lead the boy away by his hand.

"Bye, Tails! It was really cool getting to meet you!" the boy perked up a bit as he waved farewell.

"Yeah, me too! Bye, Carson!" Tails shouted and waved back. His smile faded as soon as Tails turned back around to retrieve his abandoned groceries. He wished he could have had more time to talk to Carson. Tails sympathized with the poor boy on a really deep level. Tails knew _exactly_ what it felt like to be stuck in this endless loop of abuse. Yeah, fighting back does work on bullies, but only if you are strong enough to beat them. And even strength means nothing if you are outnumbered...

 _"Lookie who we got here," the teenage bulldog Mobian snarled as he emerged from the bushes. A younger Tails immediately looked up from his work repairing a small device he'd just created, eyes wide with fear. Two other Mobians stepped out surrounding the younger fox as he leapt to his feet._

 _"Going somewhere?" one of the surrounding bullies, a weasel, laughed. "We just wanted to see what you were working on."_

 _"Yeah," another one, a hyena, spoke with a raspy voice. "We saw ya selling those little doo-dads in town today. How much do ya charge for these pieces of junk?"_

 _"More importantly," the bulldog spoke again as he advanced, "Just how much money do you got on you after all that, freak?"_

 _"I-It's none of your business," younger Tails replied, trying to hold on to his courage. "And... And I'm not a freak!"_

 _"Really? Yo, guys, how many tails you got?" the bulldog teased with a smirk._

 _"Just one!"_

 _"One! Hyeeah ha!"_

 _"Well, how do you like that? Me too!" the bulldog scoffed. "See, you ain't the only smart one around here, fox boy. I just proved all sciency and stuff that having only one tail is normal. So, that means someone with more than one tail would be..."_

 _"A **freak!** Hyeeah ha haa!" the hyena laughed._

 _The young kit growled in anger as the fur on his tails bristled. "Go away and leave me alone!" he shouted defiantly._

 _"How much you gonna pay us to leave?" the weasel cracked a cruel grin._

 _"P-pay?! I... I can't afford to give you guys my money! I barely have enough to buy more parts and maybe some food," Tails recoiled as he finally understood what these thugs were after._

 _"Aww, hear that boys? The little freak is hungry," the bulldog mocked as he stomped forward. "You know what, I'm a generous guy. Let me share my **knuckle sandwich!** "_

 _The young kit should have seen the punch coming, but fear paralyzed his body until it was too late. Tails didn't cry out as the fist slammed into his chest. Not because it didn't hurt, but because the blow completely knocked the wind out of him. Immediately, the young fox crumpled to the dirt, hands over his chest in pain._

 _"Get the money!" the weasel shouted as he quickly got on top of the fox and held him down._

 _"Nggh! No! Get off me! Leave me alone!" Tails screamed in vain as the hyena and bulldog frisked him while he struggled._

 _"Got it!" the bulldog finally removed a small number of waded up bills and stood to show the others._

 _"Hyeeah huh? Hey, that's it? By the time we split that up, it's not even worth the trouble!" the hyena complained about the paltry payoff._

 _"These doo-dads you're selling must really be junk if this is all they pay for 'em," the bulldog snarled at Tails. Spotting the dropped device Tails had been working on, the teenage Mobian started to stomp on it with his large leather boot._

 _"No! Please don't! That's...!" Tails tried to reach out for his device, but was silenced by a sharp kick to the gut._

 _"Shut up, freak!"_

 _"Aaaah! Please, just stop!" Tails begged in tears._

 _"He said shut up, **freak!** " another boot kicked the young fox, this time in the face. Tails was forced to curl into a protective ball as the painful kicks kept coming, one after the other in an endless, merciless beating._

 _"Stop! **Please!** S-STOP!"_

"TAILS, STOP!"

Tails suddenly froze as the loud yell snapped him out of his daydream. He found himself standing in the crosswalk at a intersection carrying his groceries. A horn blared even louder then the voice had been, and Tails heard the sound of screeching tires before he even had the opportunity to turn his head. In that split second, someone slammed into Tails from behind, sending them both tumbling to the safety of the sidewalk.

It took a few seconds for the dazed fox to register what had just happened. Somehow he must have wandered out in front of a truck by accident, but who had...?

"Wooo! Yeah! Saved ya!" the man dressed in a racing jacket celebrated as he climbed off of Tails' back and helped the fox back up. "Who's the big hero now? Man, what a rush! I've always wanted to do that!"

"SAM?!" Tails exclaimed in shock as he finally saw his rescuer's face.

"That's right!" the man flashed a cocky grin with a thumbs up. "Sam's the name, and speed is my game! Lucky for you I was here, or your name would be Roadkill!"

"Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I was just kind of spaced out," Tails scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "But, what are you doing here, Sam? I thought you'd be with the rest of the Speed Team on duty."

Sam's flashy smile quickly faded at the mention of his former group. "To tell you the truth, Tails... There is no more Speed Team."

"Really? What happened?" Tails was a bit astonished at the news.

"The city council decided they needed to trim back on a few programs to allocate more money to disaster relief and rebuilding funds. Turns out, other than a certain supersonic hedgehog, no one ever really speeds through the city fast enough to need a specialized team of formula one racers to chase them down," Sam sighed in disappointment.

"Oh, I guess that kinda makes sense, honestly," Tails admitted.

"Hey! I just saved your life, and now you're taking their side?" Sam shot back with a hurt expression.

"N-No! That's not what I meant!" Tails waved his hands as he tried to take back his blunder. "Thanks a lot for saving me, Sam, and my groceries. Or, well, most of them," the fox quickly realized that the contents of his two bags were now spilled out across the sidewalk.

"No sweat! I'll give you a hand and a lift back to the Thorndike's mansion," Sam offered.

"A ride?" Tails froze in the middle of picking up a can of tomato sauce. "Umm, no thanks, Sam! I-I've got it covered!"

"Aww, c'mon, Tails! You can't seriously prefer to walk all the way back," Sam insisted as he helped gather things up. "I can get you there in two shakes of your tails!"

That was precisely what Tails was afraid of. White knuckled didn't even begin to describe a ride with Sam Speed. "Honestly, I like the exercise, Sam. And I've got plenty of time since it's only 4:30... Wait, 4:30?!" Tails had to recheck his watch in disbelief. What had happened to all that spare time when he had stopped at the park? Had he really been daydreaming that long?

"I'll take that as a yes?" Sam grinned as he noticed Tails' reaction.

Now Tails knew he was cornered. Ella would need some of these groceries immediately if she was going to get supper prepared on time, and he was still several long blocks from the mansion. Tails took a deep breath to calm his nerves as best he could, then nodded to Sam.

"Great! You can tell Sonic all about my car's new features!" Sam was practically beaming with excitement as he led the way around the corner to his parked racecar.


	2. Chapter 2: The Daily Grind

**Chapter 2: The Daily Grind**

"Make sure you tell Sonic that I'm up for a rematch anytime, anywhere!" Sam shouted out the window of his racecar as Tails disembarked.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to tell him," Tails promised as he made sure to grab his groceries on the way out. He couldn't wait to get out of this speeding death trap and back on firm, stationary ground after the ride he'd just endured.

Sam Speed responded by flashing Tails a smile and a thumbs up, barely waiting for Tails to close the passenger door before slamming down the accelerator. In a squeal of tires and a cloud of white smoke, Sam raced off back down the long driveway to the Thorndike mansion's gate.

Tails coughed in the heavy cloud of smoke until it quickly dissipated. Once he could breathe again, Tails strolled on shaky legs to the mansion's front door. He was just starting to feel the adrenaline fade, along with his queasy stomach, by the time the fox rang the doorbell.

Punctual as always, Mr. Tanaka immediately greeted Tails at the door. "Ah, Master Tails. I see that you have returned from your errands. I must apologize again for making you perform such menial tasks in my stead," the butler spoke as he allowed Tails to step in.

"It's fine, Mr. Tanaka," Tails replied, "To be honest, I really enjoyed the exercise."

"Nevertheless, it is shameful that I was unable to perform my assigned duties without your aid," Mr. Tanaka refused to let go of the blame. As long as Tails had known him, Mr. Tanaka was just that way, the honorable, dependable servant. He was always eager and happy to serve, and never once had Tails seen him put his own desires above the needs of others. Not even the time when Tails needed to sneak out of the house during a siege of the press following Tails' big moment of saving downtown Station Square by quickly defusing one of Eggman's missiles. Tails would never forget how ridiculous Mr. Tanaka had looked in that oversized baby stroller, sucking on a pacifier and trying to imitate infant noises.

"Ah, there he is!" a female Latino voice exclaimed from the hallway. "I was beginning to get worried! Did you run into some kind of trouble?" Ella asked as she hurried over to accept the groceries from Tails.

"Well, not really," Tails answered with a nervous expression. He didn't see the point in recounting his near run-in with a speeding truck earlier. "I guess it just took longer than I expected. Luckily, Sam offered me a ride back."

"Oh dear! It would have been okay for supper to be just a little late, you know," Ella seemed a bit alarmed that Tails would take such a risk just to deliver her groceries on time.

"I'll remember that next time," Tails chuckled. "But, yeah... Sorry if the buns are a bit smooshed."

"It's okay, Tails. They will still taste the same," Ella smiled as she took the bags from him.

"Great! Oh, hey, Mr. Tanaka? Do you happen to know what Chuck is up to right now?" Tails asked now that his task was finally complete.

"Mr. Thorndike is working down in the lab, Master Tails. He expressed his desire for you to meet him there once you returned," Mr. Tanaka quickly replied.

"Thanks!" Tails waved at the two hired helpers as he hurried off towards the garage.

"...It's a good thing I was already planning on scrambling these eggs," Ella remarked as she examined the contents of the bags after Tails had left.

* * *

"Hey, Chuck!" Tails exclaimed as he stepped off the elevator to the underground lab beneath the Thorndike's mansion's garage.

"Tails!" the elderly man sitting at a workbench on his laptop turned to greet his friend. "Guess this means you're back from your trip into town, huh? Anything interesting happen?"

Tails hesitated for a moment before replying. "No, not really. I was just out enjoying the fresh air and reminiscing a little."

"Tails, you know you can't hide anything from me," Chuck gave the fox a critical look as he caught the slight moment of pause before his answer. "Besides, every time you try to lie, you twist your tails behind yourself in a knot."

"I-I do?" Tails looked shocked at Chuck's keen observation. He'd never noticed himself doing it before, but now that he came to think of it...

"Ha, relax, Tails! You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," Chuck quickly let the fox off the hook before he got too uncomfortable. "I was just going over our prototype's schematics again. I think that today we should be ready to test the new laser cannon we built that runs off of the Chaos Emeralds' energy."

"I've been thinking about that one too, Chuck. Remember how we've been worried that the laser cannon won't be able to hold up against that much energy in a single blast?" Tails mentioned.

"Yeah?" Chuck listened intently to his partner's new idea.

"Well, what if we dispersed the laser blast around the nose cone of the X-Tornado using several lasers all linked together?" Tails suggested.

"Hmm... More lasers being fired simultaneously would help offset the incredible energy produced by the Chaos Emeralds. Plus, with built-in refracting mirrors, we could choose to concentrate the individual beams into one larger blast, or set them to create a spread over an area possibly even larger than the X-Tornado itself," Chuck thought about the added benefits of Tails' new design.

"Exactly! Kind of like a laser shotgun, for times when we're faced with multiple smaller targets instead of one large one," Tails nodded in excitement that Chuck liked his idea so far.

"It's genius, Tails! Of course, we'll still need to test our current prototype before we try to make several of them. And then there will be the matter of figuring out how to mount them in the nose of the X-Tornado around all the existing equipment. Plus the tie in to the Chaos Emeralds' power hub and... Tails, are you paying attention?" Chuck suddenly paused in the middle of his planning to glance in concern at his coworker. Something about the fox didn't seem quite right all the sudden. Chuck couldn't point it out at first, but it looked like the fox that had just been eagerly inventing along with him was abruptly distant. His body seemed oddly heavy, like he was tired enough to collapse any second.

And just as Chuck got up to walk over and check on Tails, the fox suddenly did. The elderly man barely managed to catch Tails as he unexpectedly fainted. "Tails! Tails! Speak to me, Tails!" Chuck shouted as he gently laid the fox sprawled out on the floor and examined him with great concern. Chuck could still feel a strong pulse, and, although he was out cold, Tails was still breathing somewhat normally. Fearful of not knowing what was happening or if Tails would be okay, Chuck got up and was about to call for some help when he heard Tails stirring again and saw the fox open his bleary eyes.

"Tails! Oh, thank God you're okay!" Chuck immediately rushed back to his friend's side. "How are you feeling? Can you tell me what's wrong?"

Tails was slow to respond to Chuck's alarmed concern. He blinked his eyes a few times to get them to focus and clear his swimming vision. "Chuck?" Tails muttered as he fully came to once again, lifting his head only slightly to look at the worried man. "Uggh... Why am I on the floor? What just happened to me?" he asked, now also concerned at the very unusual circumstance.

"That's what I'd like to know," Chuck replied, his voice still very apprehensive. "I just happened to look up and saw you pass out, Tails, and I'm really worried. Has this ever happened to you before? Have you been feeling weird in any way today? Anything out of the ordinary at all?"

"No, not that I know of, Chuck," Tails answered truthfully as he took his friend's hand to help himself back to his feet. "Other than my trip into the city, I haven't done anything unusual, either. And it couldn't be anything to do with that because I've had **much** harder workouts before while fighting Eggman. I can't think of anything that might make me..." Tails was interrupted by an audible grumbling from his gut that caused him to place a hand over his white-furred belly in embarrassment.

"Hmm, it seems we might have discovered our culprit," Chuck scratched his chin as he continued to look Tails over carefully. "When was the last time you ate, Tails?"

"Well, now that you mention it..." Tails scratched his temple slowly as he tried to remember. "I guess I did skip lunch by accident. So that would mean, breakfast this morning?"

"Ah, and did you suddenly feel dizzy just before you collapsed?" Chuck followed up with his current line of questioning.

"Yeah, kinda," Tails answered with a shrug. "Do you think you're on to something, Chuck?"

"Yes, I believe so. It's possible that you've accidentally over-exerted yourself, Tails. Without enough food to keep you going, your blood sugar might have abruptly bottomed out for a moment. It's common enough in humans, at least," Chuck hypothesized.

Tails' eyes gazed down at the floor in shame as he had to agree with Chuck's guess. "Sorry, Chuck. I guess I should try to take better care of myself."

"Yes, you should," Chuck offered a stern glare that quickly melted into a caring grin. "I really care about you Tails. Ever since we've started working together, I've felt a deep friendship with you. So please try not to scare me like this again. I couldn't imagine losing you."

"Ah, c'mon, Chuck," Tails felt like blushing at the older man's heartfelt confession. "You know I'm not going to die anytime soon, at least not before you," the fox teased with a mischievous smirk.

Chuck pretended to be appalled at Tails' little joke, dropping his jaw in mock surprise. "Miles Prower! Was that an insult about my age?"

"Ha ha! Well, Chuck, you gotta admit..." Tails saw through the fake hurt act and laughed.

"Admit nothing! If I ever get old and senile, guess who I'm going to make sure always changes me and rubs cream on my bunions," Chuck threatened, finally joining in with some laughter himself. "Come on, Tails, let's save the experiments for later. It's nearly supper time, and I happen to know a foolish young kit that's nearly starving to death tonight."

"Heh, guilty as charged," Tails smiled widely as he wandered back to the elevator with Chuck.

* * *

"There you are, Sonic!" the pink hedgehog exclaimed as her self-proclaimed boyfriend zipped into the full dining room. "I've been looking all over for you! Where have you been all day?"

"Just chillin' with Chris," Sonic replied with a grin. "He said he wanted to learn how to snowboard, so we had a quick lesson up in the mountains. He's upstairs changing out of his wet coat."

Tails couldn't help but feel a bit jealous that Sonic had once again spent his time with Chris instead of with him. Ever since they came here, it was like Chris became Sonic's little brother and Tails got left out. Sure, Tails didn't mind quite as much since he spent a lot of his time with Chuck now, too, but still...

 _No, I can't let myself think of it that way,_ Tails berated himself. _Chris was lonely and hurting just like I was before meeting Sonic. He's just being the same best friend to Chris as he's always been to me, and right now Chris needs him more than I do._

Another Mobian sitting at the table, however, was less introspective than Tails and quickly let her similar feelings show. "How come you never spend any time with _me_ , Sonic? I am your girlfriend, after all!" Amy sounded hurt.

"Sorry, Amy. Guess I just didn't have the time to teach two lessons," Sonic tried to dodge the accusation.

"My mommy taught me that you make time for the things that are the most important to you, Mr. Sonic," Cream spoke up cheerfully, happy to share her mother's words of wisdom.

"Yes, Cream dear, but... Perhaps now isn't the time for that particular lesson?" Vanilla looked mortified at what her daughter had just said. Not necessarily because it wasn't true, but the timing left a lot to be desired.

"But wait, that would mean..." Amy stopped to think things over for a moment. "Ah! Sonic, you... you don't think I'm important to you?" the pink hedgehog's eyes started to tear up at the revelation.

"Whoa! Wait, Ames! I-I never said that!" Sonic backpedaled in shock.

"But I bet he's always wanted to," Chuck muttered under his breath to Tails next to him at the table. Maybe it was mean spirited, but the fox had to work really hard not to crack a smile in response. Amy did have a habit of single-mindedly pursuing her obsessive crush and ignoring any clues about Sonic's disinterest.

"Then prove it!" Amy quickly demanded to the blue hedgehog. "Take me right now to go learn snowboarding! Oh, or even better, figure skating!"

"B-But Amy! Can't we at least eat first? I mean, it _does_ happen to be chili dog night..." Sonic tried to stall for time until he could figure out a way to escape this mess.

Judging by Amy's enraged reaction, though, Sonic had failed spectacularly. "Does that mean now you love _chili dogs_ more than **ME?!** " Amy shouted as she suddenly brandished her giant Piko Piko Hammer.

All around the table heads ducked for cover, fearful of the impending rampage. That's when Christopher Thorndike, the last to arrive for dinner, stepped into the dining room. He looked around in astonishment at the war about to break out, having missed the instigating argument.

"Wh-what's going on here, guys?" Chris worried.

"There he is, you relationship stealer!" Amy growled at Chris now as she gripped her mallet tightly.

"Aah! What did I do?!" Chris waved his hands in front of himself defensively.

"Beats me, Chris! I've got no idea what's going on anymore!" Sonic likewise slowly backed away from the armed pink hedgehog.

Amy continued to advance on the two for a few steps, bringing her hammer above her head to prepare for a smashing blow. Sonic and Chris found themselves backed into a wall with no escape. But just when it looked like Amy was going to take a swing, she unexpectedly paused. To everyone's amazement, her eyes were closed as she fought back tears, and, finally, Amy allowed her mallet to fall harmlessly from her grip.

"Oh, what's the point?" Amy tried her best not sound like she was crying. "Fine, I guess now that I finally know just how important I really am to you, Sonic, I'm leaving!"

"Huh?! But, Amy, you can't just...!" Chris immediately objected, wondering what he had done that made Amy so upset.

"I still have an apartment in town, and I'm moving back there permanently!" Amy resolved as she started to stomp off, acting tough to try and hide her hurt.

"But, Amy...!" Cream called out in distress, accompanied by matching cries from Cheese, her companion Chao. Tense moments of silence passed as everyone watched Amy leaving in disbelief.

"Hey, Sonic?" Tails walked over to talk to his older brother quietly. "I know Amy is overreacting like usual, but I think this time her feelings are really hurt. Maybe you should do something?"

Sonic shrugged at first, wondering how all of this spiraled so out of control in the first place. All he'd done was show up for supper! Amy was the one that started all this drama. But as Amy kept walking to the door with her head hanging low, he felt like more and more people were glaring at him, expecting him to say something to make things right. As she was just about to make her exit, Sonic looked up at the ceiling in a brief moment of exasperation and sighed.

The next moment, a blue blur intercepted Amy at the dining room's door as Sonic instantly blocked her path. "Alright, look, Ames," Sonic used his pet nickname for the pink hedgehog. "I'm sorry if I said something that hurt you. Maybe I can make it up to you by doing something together sometime? Just you and me?"

"You... You mean, like a date?!" Amy suddenly froze in total disbelief as she looked into Sonic's deep emerald eyes for any sign of insincerity.

"A d-d-date?!" Sonic recoiled, wondering what he was getting himself into. "I-I was just meaning, you know, to hang out a bit..." the hedgehog stammered helplessly.

"I'll take it!" Amy burst in, quickly wrapping her arms around the other hedgehog's neck with a giddy smirk.

"You know, this might only encourage her to be even more assertive in the future," Chuck muttered to Tails as everyone watched the one-sided embrace and Sonic's panicked expression.

"Ha ha! Yeah, I'm sure it will," Tails agreed, giving Sonic a teasing grin.

"Dinner is ready!" Ella called out from the swinging doors that led into the kitchen. She then emerged holding large plates of chili dogs in each hand, placing one at either end of the table. In response, everyone quickly took their seats again for the meal.

Glad for the distraction, Sonic reached for the chili dog on the top of the stack nearest him, only for it to suddenly disappear in a yellow blur of motion. Stunned, he looked up to find Tails already munching down on the beefy treat with a ravenous appetite.

"Hey there buddy, gonna save some for the rest of us?" Sonic interjected as Tails polished off the first chili dog and reached for another. "And here I thought _I_ was the fastest thing alive..."

"Oh! Sorry, Sonic!" Tails quickly responded after realizing his rude manners. "I was just so hungry that I couldn't wait!"

"It's OK, everybody," Ella's voice chanted from the kitchen doorway, "I made plenty for everyone!"

"Although Master Tails should still use proper manners for eating at a table with others," came Mr. Tanaka's critical remark.

"Oh, come on, Tanaka. It's just chili dogs. It's not like we're having dinner with the President or anything," retorted Chuck from the other end of the table. "Besides, Tails missed lunch today, so I think that excuses his behavior."

"Manners are important regardless of the formality of an event," Mr. Tanaka simply responded. "And forgetting a meal is not a valid excuse since it is one's own fault for doing so."

"So, is everyone ready for the big ski resort trip tomorrow?" asked Chris, hoping to interrupt another fight before it could start when Chuck seemed visibly upset with Mr. Tanaka's reply.. "My dad is letting us use his private lodge at the best ski resort north of Station Square for the whole weekend." Chris's dad was the head executive of a major corporation that had a hand in almost every kind of business imaginable, from common house appliances to the water supply system for Station Square. His mother, on the other hand, was a fabulous and talented movie star that traveled the world staring in lead roles for major productions. That made Chris financially able to do whatever he wanted to, except spend time with them more often.

"Oh, yes, Chris!" replied Cream from the seat next to her mother. "I can't wait! This trip is going to be so much fun!"

"Chao! Chao!" replied Cheese.

"Sounds like the perfect chance for a certain someone and I to take skating lessons together!" Amy gave Sonic the overt hint, but was aggravated when he didn't even look up from his meal to meet her gaze.

"Then I suggest that we all get to bed promptly tonight so that we can get an early start tomorrow morning," Mr. Tanaka intruded, mostly to prevent Amy from chasing Sonic around the dining room with her giant Piko Piko Hammer again.

"Right!" everyone responded at once and finished off their meals. Afterwards, everyone left the dining room to prepare for bed.

"You sure had some serious munchies tonight, little bro," Sonic teased Tails as they headed for their shared bedroom. "I haven't seen you eat so much food in a long time."

"Yeah, well, like Chuck said, I did forget to eat lunch before I went into town today. I'm kinda glad that I did, though, because I probably would have barfed it all up in Sam's car on the way home," replied the young fox as he climbed into his bed . He purposefully left out the incident in the lab today or his close call at that crosswalk because he felt they would only worry Sonic for no reason.

Sonic failed to notice that Tails was not telling him absolutely everything that happened today, but he did laugh at the look of disgust on his best bud's face. Sonic had raced Sam Speed enough times to know how the self-proclaimed Speed King liked to drive, very fast and very clean dangerous. "Let me guess, he wanted you to tell me he wants a rematch," Sonic smirked as he jumped into his own bed across the small room.

"Well, it doesn't take someone with my IQ to guess _that_ ," Tails chuckled.

"I'm not sure if that was an insult or not," Sonic gave Tails a playful grin. "Well, goodnight little bro!"

"'Night, Sonic," Tails replied with a yawn as he laid his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes.

Sonic laid back with his hands under his head and stared at the ceiling. This trip was going to be a great break for everyone. Eggman's schemes had been getting more and more dangerous lately, especially when Space Colony Ark nearly wiped out the planet. Well, okay, so maybe that one wasn't _quite_ Eggman's plan entirely, but, still, a remote vacation would be just what the doctor ordered for the weary crew.

He heard movement from the other bed and turned his head to look. Sonic watched as the fox's twin tails unconsciously wrapped around himself like a blanket. It always made Sonic smirk to see his adoptive brother curl up like that. He wondered if Tails would ever know how often he watched the little fox in secret. All his cute little expressions... Sonic knew that Tails thought he didn't need him most of the time, but only the hedgehog knew how completely wrong that was.

"Sweet dreams, little bro," Sonic muttered with a smile that stayed on his face until Sonic too was asleep.


	3. Chapter 3: Under the Weather

**Chapter 3: Under the Weather**

The trip to the ski lodge had so far been uneventful, but in the best possible way. Unable to catch Sonic and force him to go with her, Amy had instead abducted Chris as her partner to take figure skating lessons. Despite the rocky start, they actually seemed to enjoy themselves as they both improved. Cream and Cheese spent all their time out playing in the snow under Vanilla's supervision. Chuck was out skiing a time or two, but he mostly stuck to the luxurious spa and grand picturesque views from the resort's highest balcony. Mr. Tanaka was busier than ever, constantly keeping everyone's schedules and gear in order so their little vacation went perfectly, but even he got a brief moment on the slopes. As it turned out, Mr. Tanaka used to ski competitively when he was younger, or at least so he claimed. Ella had stayed behind, naturally, to mind the house and get in some extra deep cleaning while it was vacant. And of course Sonic, being the daredevil he always was, spent every waking moment carving up the slopes on his snowboard.

 _And boy is he hard to keep up with!_ Tails thought as he struggled to chase the speeding hedgehog downhill. Tails learned how to snowboard from Sonic a long time ago and had decided to join Sonic for this last run of the day. And, of course, Sonic chose to blaze his own trail down one of the steepest and most treacherous faces of the mountain. Tails felt up to the challenge at first, but he started lagging further and further behind as he chose to take safer, rather than faster routes downhill. _It's sad that today is our last day to have fun here,_ thought Tails. _I really have enjoyed this weekend with no annoying press or Eggman or..._

"Hey, Tails!" Sonic shouted as he unexpectedly slid to a stop just in front of the fox.

Tails cried out as he looked up in his distraction and saw Sonic suddenly stopped in his path. The fox slammed his board sideways and leaned back to try and dig into the snow to stop himself before they collided. He did manage to succeed, falling over on his back just inches from the stationary hedgehog.

"Whoops, sorry bud!" Sonic apologized. "Good thing you were wearing that coat for extra padding!" The blue hedgehog reached down to offer his little brother a hand.

"Yeah, maybe," Tails didn't sound so sure as he took the offered hand and stood back up. He normally wouldn't have worn anything special, even on this freezing cold mountainside. He had pretty thick fur to keep him warm, even better than Sonic's, honestly. But Tails had remembered his promise to Chuck to take better care of himself, so he'd donned the heavy coat as an extra precaution before leaving with Sonic. The only problem was Tails wasn't used to the extra bulk of the coat, and it was doing murder to his coordination.

"There's a big jump ahead, Tails. Watch this!" Sonic quickly kicked off again and sped toward a cliff face. He vaulted off of the lip of the small cliff and immediately kicked free of his snowboard. Sonic did a double somersault midair and still had plenty of hang time to strike his classic "thumbs up" pose, in a reclining posture no less, before miraculously landing on his discarded snowboard with a huge grin.

"Pfft, showoff!" Tails shouted down at Sonic after observing the impressive stunt. _Why is it that everything he does always makes it look so easy? I don't think there's a competition in the world that Sonic couldn't take first place if he entered, except maybe a quiz show._ Regardless, the only way down was to follow Sonic's example, so Tails took a couple deep breaths and rushed over the cliff after him.

As he cleared the edge, Tails started to do a simple 360 degree spin while holding the front of his board. In the middle of his stunt, though, Tails was blinded by a sudden flash of yellow from his coat pocket. Just this tiny moment of distraction caused Tails to lose his grip on the snowboard, so he tried to use his other senses to straighten himself back out for a blind landing. That's when he felt his snowboard slip out from under him as he fell. Tails silently cursed himself for not trying to modify the human-intended straps and instead following Sonic's example of a bare board.

There was only one way out of this free-fall now. Tails immediately tried to spin up his twin namesakes to bring himself to a safe hover. As Tails was horrified to discover, however, the heavy coat that he was wearing, which was _also_ designed for non-tailed humans, severely limited the range of motion of his two furry appendages. The way they were simply tucked under and trailing out the bottom of the coat, Tails couldn't get them free enough to spin. Just then the blinding light faded as quickly as it had started, and Tails opened his eyes to see where he was about to land. He let out a panicked yip when all he could see for the last half-second was endless white.

Sonic heard the quick cry of alarm and heard the muffled thud immediately after. The blue hedgehog turned around to search the cliff behind him for any sign of Tails, and was alarmed not to spot the bright yellow fox against the drab mountainside. "Tails? Hey, Tails!" Sonic ditched his snowboard and hurried back the short distance to find his missing partner. It only took a second or two for him to find the fox-shaped hole in the snowbank nearby. "Yo, Tails, are you all right, buddy?"

"I'm fine, Sonic," came the stunned Tails' reply as he sat up from his cold landing site, imagining a flock of Flickies orbiting his head. As he recovered, Tails did a quick survey of himself. Nothing seemed broken or injured, just a few sore spots from the impact. He guessed he must have gotten lucky, landing in a fresh snow bank like he did. It might have well as been a pile of soft mattresses.

"Looks like you bombed that jump, buddy. What's the matter? Did you forget you could fly?" Sonic gave a teasing grin once he knew Tails was unharmed.

"Ha ha, very funny, Sonic," Tails laughed sarcastically as he stood and began brushing off all the snow covering him. "It's this coat Chuck wanted me to wear. I can't fly in it... or so I just discovered," the fox passed the blame to try and save a bit of his pride.

"Or do stunts either," Sonic added, still teasing with a smug grin. "Take it off then, if it bugs you so much."

Tails thought about Sonic's suggestion for a moment. The idea had occurred to him several times before, but now it felt like Tails was being given permission to remove the impeding clothing. So he quickly did so, making sure to grab any contents out of the coat's pockets in the process. That's when he pulled out the yellow Chaos Emerald he'd brought with him to power the X-Tornado, and Tails suddenly stared at it in shock.

"Sonic, look, the Emerald!" Tails quickly shared his discovery, holding up the glowing gem for Sonic to see as well. "It's reacting to something around here! Maybe that was the flash that made me lose my balance a second ago."

"Yeah, but Tails, don't the Chaos Emeralds only react when they're near other Emeralds?" Sonic reminded the excited fox. "Unless that means..."

"Come on!" Tails hadn't even waited for Sonic to come to his conclusion. The fox was already running back up the slope, using the intensity of the Emerald's glowing like a tracking device. As he passed over a spot in his previous flight path over the cliff, the yellow Emerald let out a bright pillar of light again, forcing Tails to turn his head away and step back until the Chaos Emerald in his hand wasn't blinding anymore. "Right over here, Sonic! It has to be under all this snow."

"One super-Sonic snow shovel, coming right up!" the blue hedgehog grinned as he noted the spot Tails was pointing at. He jumped up and charged a spindash in the air, shooting himself back down into the snow like a blue drill bit. Tails waited for a minute at the surface as he heard Sonic using his spin dash to dig around under the snow drift to search for the buried Chaos Emerald.

"Find anything yet, Sonic?" Tails finally shouted down the hole in the snow where Sonic had first entered. Seconds later, instead of giving Tails a reply, Sonic re-emerged a few feet away. He burst out of the new hole he'd made and uncurled in midair, landing on his feet with a smile. "So, did you get it? Seems like it took you a while," Tails asked again.

"Yeah, it was like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles," Sonic remarked as he held out the clear Chaos Emerald he'd just dug out.

"...Wouldn't that be incredibly easy, Sonic?" Tails scratched his head at the unusual twist of the popular idiom.

"Not if you were looking for just one needle in particular," Sonic explained as he walked over to Tails to give him the new Emerald. Luckily, the two emeralds didn't react so severely to each other a third time, but Tails put the yellow one away just in case.

Tails nodded his head to show he understood while he inspected the crystal clear Chaos Emerald. "This brings us up to six of the seven Emeralds, Sonic. Only one more to go before we can use them to go back home."

"Yeah, and I don't think we'd ever have found this one if it wasn't for you being so lucky, Tails," Sonic chuckled.

"Lucky? I fell off a cliff, Sonic! How is that luck?" Tails shot the hedgehog a cynical glare.

"It's all in how you look at it, buddy," Sonic laughed.

"Yes, and I, for one, feel incredibly lucky today!" a familiar but unwelcome voice boomed from behind the two talking Mobians.

Tails felt his fur stand on end as he turned around with an annoyed growl. "Eggman! Go away! We're on a vacation!" the fox shouted to the uninvited guest hovering in his unmistakable pod a short distance away.

"Oh really? And you just so happened to stumble across a Chaos Emerald buried on a mountainside completely by random while enjoying yourselves? Why, maybe the next time I go to the beach, one will just wash ashore at my feet!" Eggman voiced his obvious skepticism.

"Can it, Egghead! Tails is right. Can't you give us one weekend without having to destroy another dumb robot of yours?" Sonic replied back with a clenched first.

"Sonic, you wound me! And here I thought you valued our little rivalry as much as I did," Eggman pretended to be hurt by the hedgehog's dismissal. "I guess my new robot and I will have to teach you how to give someone the cold shoulder properly!" At the press of a button on his wrap-around console, Eggman summoned his newest creation from the woods nearby. The snow-covered pines shook and fell as a giant treaded vehicle plowed out from the tree line. It's design was rather simplistic for one of Eggman's robots, simply a huge parabolic dish mounted to a treaded chassis.

"What does this hunk of junk do, Egghead? Mess with our satellite reception?" Sonic goaded Eggman at the sight of the unusual device.

"Why you impudent...!" Eggman fumed at Sonic's refusal to act intimidated by the huge robot.

"Heya, Tails? What do you think he calls this one? Dish-tank?" Sonic guessed, ribbing his buddy to play along to aggravate Eggman further.

Tails was more than happy to play along. At least making fun of Eggman helped him feel less annoyed by his interrupting their vacation. "Nah, Eggman's got a pattern with his names a lot of the time. First, it's what the robot does. Hmm... He's ambushing us on a snowy mountain and he made a cold-related pun, so it's probably a freeze ray of some sort. Then add a suffix that sounds robotic, like -bot or -tron. And last, put some arbitrary big number that sounds impressive."

"So, like, Icebot 1,000?" Sonic tried Tails' formula.

"Ha! Wrong, hedgehog! This is my new Freeze-a-tron 5,000 Mark 3!" Eggman proudly proclaimed.

Sonic nearly slapped his forehead at Eggman's answer. "Same difference, Eggman. Admit it, your names are getting lame and totally predictable."

"Not exactly, Sonic," Tails broke in. "The Mark 3 part is different. What happened to Marks 1 and 2?" he asked Eggman out of curiosity.

"Flawed prototypes," Eggman twiddled his fingers for a moment in shame. "Let's just say I managed to save myself the need to buy a new walk-in freezer and leave it at that."

Now it was Tails' turn to look embarrassed for Eggman. "So, what makes you sure that this one will work, then?" he asked.

"Simple! Because, by using the power of a Chaos Emerald, I can guarantee more than enough power to charge the main weapon!" Eggman shared.

"You have the last Emerald?" Tails' eyes widened in surprise.

"No, my foxy little friend. I have _your_ last Emerald!" Eggman sneered. Before Tails could be tipped off by Eggman's words, a mechanical grappling arm shot out from the Freeze-a-tron 5,000 and yanked the clear Chaos Emerald from Tails' hand. It retracted just as quickly back into the base of Eggman's robot, accompanied by sounds of the machine powering up and its large dish glowing a pale blue.

"Ah! Sonic, I'm sor..." Tails started to apologize for losing the Emerald, only for Sonic to suddenly rush towards him. In the blink of an eye, Sonic picked Tails up and got them both to safety as a shimmering beam of energy hit where they had both been standing, creating a pillar of ice.

"Talk about your cold reception!" Sonic just couldn't resist the lame, spur-of-the-moment joke. He quickly dropped Tails back on his feet and revved into a spin dash, speeding straight towards his frigid opponent.

"Whooo ho ho hoo! We're just getting warmed up, Sonic! Blast him!" commanded Eggman as he saw Sonic closing in on his newest creation. At least 20 missiles streamed out of the back of the robotic tank and started chasing after Sonic. The blue hedgehog was forced to change course, looping in a large circle around the Freeze-a-tron 5,000 as he used trees and rocky outcroppings to dupe the homing rockets. He thought he'd tricked them all into hitting objects other than him when Sonic noticed the last one coming straight down at him from above. The blue hedgehog quickly sidestepped the blast, but was thrown into the air by the proximity of the explosion, landing behind a large snow bank where Tails was taking shelter.

"Hate to say it, Tails, but Egghead is getting a lot smarter with programming his missiles. I'm gonna need a distraction to get close to that thing," Sonic tried to come up with a quick battle plan.

"Right, I'll go back to the lodge and get the X-Tornado fired up!" replied the worried fox as he grabbed his snowboard. He shared a quick thumbs up with Sonic before the fox raced downhill, using his now unhindered tails like a propeller to zoom back to the lodge, leaving a long rooster tail of fresh powder in his wake.

"Now to find out how I'm going to put this bot on ice," Sonic said to himself as he watched Tails quickly disappear down the mountain. He heard a strange noise and launched himself away from the snowdrift he had been hiding behind. Looking behind him, Sonic noticed that the spot he'd just been standing was again encased in solid ice. _Can't stay still for long or I'll be a hedgehog-cicle. At least it can't get a lock on me while I'm running around._ Just then, a near miss from a freeze ray blast directly in front of him almost proved Sonic wrong. _...Or not._ _Maybe I should try another frontal assault,_ Sonic thought on his feet. He turned and headed straight for the robot again at full speed.

"Ah ah ah, Sonic! I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Eggman shouted out while grinning widely. "Freeze-a-tron 5,000, execute maneuver Alpha-Two-Beta!" In response to Eggman's codenamed instructions, the satellite dish atop the tank-bot blasted a wide semicircle of ice on the ground in front of Sonic.

 _Uh, oh!_ Sonic realized too late that he couldn't stop in time to avoid slipping on the icy speed bump. As he attempted to screech to a stop, he lost his balance on the ice and unceremoniously fell on his posterior in the middle of the new ice rink. "OK, Egghead, I'm through playing around!" the now enraged hedgehog yelled back at the laughing Doctor.

"Whoo ho ho ho ho! I think you need to chill, Sonic! Did you realize that this resort gives ice skating lessons? Maybe you should have attended a few," Eggman taunted with a toothy grin.

Sonic was _really_ glad that Amy wasn't here right now, or he'd never have heard the end of it. He jumped back to his feet with an annoyed snarl... and promptly ended up on his rear once again. Sonic growled as he heard Eggman laughing even harder. He got back up on his feet, slowly this time, and prepared to simply jump off the icy patch to the snow nearby.

That's when Eggman's robot decided to play dirty. Another freeze-ray blast caught Sonic off guard, and the next thing he knew his feet were both frozen to the mountainside, encased in solid ice up to his chest. Sonic tried to move to break free, but it was just too tight. He couldn't even curl up enough to spindash his way free. _So this is how it ends, huh? Egghead actually wins after all these years? Who would have thought?_

"It worked? I mean, yes, it worked! Whooo ho ho hoo! Now to finish you off, you pesky hedgehog!" Eggman said with another evil, annoying laugh as his robot shot five more missiles at the immobilized Sonic. They each took their time, arcing high into the air before streaking down menacingly towards the trapped hero.

Sonic closed his eyes and grit his teeth in preparation of the pain that was coming. He could hear the missiles screaming through the air as they got closer and closer... Then, to his astonishment, Sonic heard a loud buzzsaw noise and all the warheads detonate prematurely directly above him, just a mere second or two before reaching their target. He looked up immediately and cried out for joy as the X-Tornado swooped by on a high speed, low altitude pass.

"No, No, NO!" Eggman pounded his control panel in frustration as he witnessed the familiar plane shoot down his missiles just barely in the nick of time. "Grrrrr! Well, don't just sit there! Bring that plane down!" Eggman screamed at his latest invention.

A new salvo of missiles streaked into the sky to chase the X-Tornado as it looped around the mountain for another attack run. Tails had expected that he'd become the new target. In fact, he'd been counting on it in order to take the robot's attention away from attacking the defenseless Sonic. He pulled an inverted loop to bring the X-Tornado on a direct path towards the incoming missiles and let rip with his machine guns again. He blasted most of them out of the sky in small, fiery explosions, then did a barrel roll as the two that survived streaked by within inches of the agile jet. Both missiles tried to U-turn to come back at the X-Tornado again, but they ended up colliding with each other in the process, making a slightly larger, combined explosion.

Meanwhile, Tails pressed the attack, firing on the Freeze-a-tron 5,000 itself. Unfortunately, his shots bounced off the armor of the robot harmlessly, barely managing to put several small holes in the large dish of its main weapon but not much else. Tails realized that this wasn't going to work as he pulled up again and prepared to dodge more missiles.

"That's it! Fire!" Eggman commanded as he saw the annoying fighter jet break off again and recognized the moment of opportunity. A dazzling beam of energy lanced out into the sky from the oversized dish, tracking the retreating plane. The beam crossed paths with the X-Tornado for only a split second as Tails tried to dodge, but that was already long enough. "Ha ha! Bullseye!" Eggman gloated as he saw the X-Tornado glistening with a layer of ice from the nose back down one side to its all-important wings.

Inside the half-frozen jet, Tails had alarms screeching at him from nearly every instrument in his cockpit. The controls weren't responding on one side of the plane, and he was fighting with all his might against the yoke as the plane kept wanting to roll on its side. Tails was losing airspeed fast and knew that a stall was only moments away. Try as he might, Tails quickly realized that the X-Tornado had become unflyable. Even so, he managed to force the stricken jet to finish its turn for one last pass, knowing it meant he would end up going down on the mountain.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is the X-Tornado! I'm going to crash into the mountain! I have to eject!" Tails shouted into his cockpit headset, hoping someone would be listening to his distress signal. He manually unlatched the cockpit glass from its hinges and tried to push against it to pop it loose. To his horror, though, the canopy which should have been ripped away by just the wind alone refused to budge at all. Tails pounded on it a couple times, but it was no use. The ice from the freeze ray blast had frozen the canopy shut.

"Looks like I'm out of options," Tails talked to himself to try and stay calm and focused. He still had a couple moments of control left before he knew he would stall. Just time enough for one last shot. Instead of reaching for the gun's controls, however, Tails flipped a switch to arm a different device. Aiming at a certain spot next to the robot, Tails fired a single golden projectile. Immediately after its launch, the X-Tornado began to shake and lurch violently towards its frozen side. It couldn't stay in the air any longer with the added weight and altered aerodynamics of all that ice built up on its body. Tails was powerless to do anything but strap in and hold on as the plane rolled over and dove into the mountain.

Sonic watched in horror as the half-frozen X-Tornado plummeted toward the mountainside. "No! TAILS!" he screamed as he heard but couldn't see the plane collide with the slope below. He didn't see Tails eject before it hit, but the hedgehog held on to hope that maybe he'd gotten out moments before impact. That's when Sonic noticed out the corner of his eye a twinkling golden ring flying straight towards him from the sky.

Sonic reached up and snatched the gold ring, wasting no time tapping into its power. _Thanks, bro,_ Sonic thought as he channeled the energy into quickly melting the ice around him. "I'm gonna get you for that, Eggman!" Sonic growled so vehemently that Eggman's joyful smile suddenly faded in fear. Using the remaining power of the ring, Sonic spun in place as he charged a super spindash.

"No! How did you...?" Eggman wondered out loud as he realized too late that suddenly the game had changed. "Well don't just stand there! Fire! FIRE!" He frantically ordered his robot.

The monstrous robot never had a chance to comply. In the blink of an eye, Sonic took off like a cannonball, punching straight through the armored chassis of the machine and out the other side like it was made of tissue paper.

"Oh no! Not my beautiful Freeze-a-tron 5,000!" Eggman lamented as the robo-tank glowed brightly and exploded, sending Eggman's pod hurling into the stratosphere.

"Better luck next time on the Mark 4," Sonic taunted as he watched Eggman get blown away. Then he simply held out his hand and caught the clear Chaos Emerald as it fell from the blast as well. Seconds later, he heard the sound of several snowmobiles rushing up to meet him.

"Sonic! Tails told us you were in trouble, but he was in too much of a hurry to say why. What happened?" greeted Chris, seated behind Mr. Tanaka on the lead vehicle.

"Just chillin' with Egghead for a moment, Chris," Sonic confidently responded.

"Well, it looks like things have already been handled. And is that another Chaos Emerald?" Chuck looked very surprised to see the gem in Sonic's hand.

"But, wait, where is Tails?" asked Cream who rode behind her mother Vanilla, who obviously didn't have much skill in driving a snowmobile because Chuck was squeezed into the front seat to drive the thing.

"Chao?" Cheese chimed in with an inquisitive tone as it hugged Cream's fuzzy coat.

"He crashed down on the mountain. C'mon!" Sonic instantly remembered. He took off in a blue blur towards the direction he'd seen the X-Tornado go down. He reached the crash site first and immediately began surveying the wreckage, or at least what was visible of the snow-buried plane. The impact must have triggered a localized avalanche that buried most of the jet, although it was encouraging to see that the X-Tornado stayed mostly in one piece. Say what you'd like about Eggman's talent with machines, but Tails really knew how to build something that could last.

"Tails! Hey, Tails!" Sonic called out, still hoping the fox had managed to eject at the last moment. When he got no answer, Sonic started to worry. He began digging out the forward cockpit using his spindash as the others finally arrived again on their snowmobiles.

They all stared in astonishment at what Sonic had uncovered. Tails' body was still in the cockpit slumped over the controls. It was impossible to tell if he was breathing, though, because of the thick sheet of ice that distorted their view and kept them from getting to the clearly unconscious fox.

"How do we get through that to get Tails out?" Chris again spoke first.

"Luckily, I came prepared for such an emergency," calmly replied Mr. Tanaka. He took out a large ice pick and a small hammer from some climbing supplies strapped to his snowmobile and began to chip away at the ice. The process was agonizingly slow, however, knocking off only small chunks of ice at a time.

"This is taking too long!" argued Sonic after a couple minutes of seemingly no progress.

"Let me try, Mr. Tanaka!" said Amy. He acquiesced and watched her as she jammed the ice pick as far as she could into the small hole Mr. Tanaka had so far chiseled out. Then she took out her trusty giant Piko Piko Hammer and smashed the ice pick in as hard as she could.

"Ow!" Amy dropped her hammer as she held her wrist in pain. She hadn't expected the ice to be so solid, like trying to smash through concrete. But from the ice pick, cracks began to spiderweb their way across the ice. The cracking noises grew louder, too, until thankfully the wall of ice disintegrated into countless shards of all sizes.

"Nice work, Ames!" Sonic said while flashing a 'thumbs up' towards her.

"Oh, it was nothing Sonic," responded the flustered pink hedgehog, who now blushed as she clasped her hands behind her back. She absolutely loved it when he gave her a honest compliment like that.

With the icy barrier now removed, Chuck and Sonic were able to pull away the detached canopy and get to Tails. On his first attempt to extricate the fox, Chuck forgot to undo the safety straps Tails had cinched up tightly around himself. But, once they were removed, Tails was lifted carefully out and laid back gently on the snow.

Mr. Tanaka conducted a hasty inspection of the downed pilot while everyone watched in concerned silence. "Master Tails appears to be in good condition. There are no obvious signs of massive trauma," the butler, who was apparently also once a medic as well, reported to the nervous crowd.

"Then why isn't he moving?" inquired the still terrified Cream as she clutched at her mother's long skirt.

"He was probably knocked out in the crash. I noticed quite a bruise on his forehead from the dashboard," answered Chuck, trying to sound more calm than he actually felt. "The real danger Tails is in right now would be hypothermia. We need to get him back to the lodge immediately and warm him up. If only he'd been wearing that coat like I asked him to," Chuck lamented.

"Leave it to me!" volunteered Sonic, who grabbed his little brother's shivering body and raced down the mountain as fast as he could. He didn't want to face the fact that his encouragement for Tails to ditch the coat might have put Tails in more jeopardy, nor was he going to tell Chuck. Sonic was just determined to make sure Tails pulled through.

* * *

 _Ooooh... Something doesn't feel right,_ was his first thought as he came to. Slowly Tails began to feel the nerves in his body coming back online along with his brain. He almost wished that they hadn't. His whole body ached, his head felt like a smashed pumpkin, and he was still rather cold although he could tell that he was wrapped in a blanket and next to something hot like a fireplace. He wanted to open his eyes and see where he was, but they felt so heavy that he couldn't. Instead, he let out a weak moan.

In response, he heard footsteps approaching from someone close by. Survival instincts kicked in as the wounded fox wondered if they belonged to a friend or a foe, so he forced his eyes open despite their resistance. He was greeted with the view of the inside of a room in the Thorndike's private ski lodge. As Tails had guessed, he was lying next to a roaring fire in the single fireplace, and he was wrapped up like a mummy in multiple blankets. But the owner of the footsteps wasn't visible until Tails managed to slowly and painfully turn his head.

"So you finally decided to wake up, huh?" Amy remarked as Tails made eye contact with her.

"Amy?" Tails spoke confusedly, "Ugh... What happened?"

"You and Sonic were attacked by Eggman, remember? You got shot down, but Sonic used the ring you gave him to beat the robot," Amy reminded the befuddled fox.

"Oh, that's right! Wait! Did you say Sonic made it out okay? And what about the Chaos Emerald I found? And what happened to the X-Tornado?" Tails sputtered out as he forgot about his pain and sat bolt upright, now fully recalling the day's events and needing to know how it was all resolved.

"They're all fine and perfectly safe, Tails." It was Chuck's voice from across the room. "Sonic managed to defeat Eggman thanks to your help, and he recovered the Chaos Emerald, too. As for the X-Tornado, well, it is still being unburied and hauled down the mountain from the crash site, but it will probably be shipped back to the mansion by the morning."

"Chuck!" Tails turned to see his friend in the doorway.

"You gave us quite a scare today, Tails. You really had me worried again," Chuck responded somberly, reminding the fox of his promise.

"Sorry, Chuck. I know that I promised never to put myself in danger like that again, but I… well..." muttered Tails apologetically.

"It's OK, Tails. You had to help Sonic, and you ended up saving his life. Even if you were a little bit reckless. Sometimes you just have to be. I get it." The last thing Chuck had wanted to do was to make Tails feel guilty.

Tails just smiled at the reassuring words and felt glad to know that he'd ended up rescuing Sonic after all. Amy, who didn't know about Tails' promise to Chuck a few days before, looked quizzically at the two males, but decided not to ask any questions. For that, Tails was glad. He didn't really feel like talking anymore. Now that his curiosity and concerns were satisfied, Tails felt the stiffness and pain returning.

He laid back down to get comfortable, feeling his eyelids drooping again already. Tails thought it was ridiculous to go back to sleep already when he'd only just woken up, but his tired body overrode his mind's refusal. As he drifted back to sleep, he instinctively curled his twin tails around his body for extra warmth. Normally he'd only do that around Sonic, but somehow he didn't care if anyone saw him curled up like a baby kit today. Amy and Chuck had already left the room quietly to tell the others, who were busy packing, that Tails was fine. So no one was around to see him curl up anyway, or to hear his muffled sneezes.


	4. Chapter 4: Just Like Old Times

**Chapter 4: Just Like Old Times**

 _I have the best job in the world,_ the red echidna thought to himself as he laid at the foot of the Master Emerald's shrine on Angel Island. _All day long I can just lay around doing whatever I please. All I have to do is protect one huge gem that pretty much nobody but me is strong enough to carry. I mean, what is somebody going to do, sneak up in a helicopter and tow it away while I'm napping? Ha!_ Knuckles smirked confidently to himself. _It seems strange that I had to prove myself to be the toughest echidna in existence just to get such a laid-back job, but, hey, I'm not complaining._

Knuckles pondered that last thought for a while. _Well, now that I think about it, I guess I am_ _the **only** echidna left in existence, at least as far as anybody knows. So, does that mean I'm only the strongest by default?_ he doubted for only a moment. _...Nah! They don't come any tougher than me! Even if more of my kind were still_ _around, like in those visions Tikal showed me, I'm sure I'd beat 'em all!_ Knuckles puffed out his chest in pride.

 _Still, it'd be nice to have someone to talk to for a change. It's not that I don't take my job seriously, but Sonic and those guys get to travel around and have fun all the time exploring this different world while I'm still stuck here where I've always been. Plus, it can get a bit lonely up here on a floating island all to myself every day. Ugh, Sonic would never let me hear the end of it if he knew what I was thinking right now,_ Knuckles stood up and shook his head.

Knuckles sighed. His tough-guy reputation and deep devotion to duty didn't allow him to share his complaints with anyone but himself. But just because he never let it show didn't mean the red echidna didn't struggle with loneliness at times. _Let's just see where Angel Island will be floating over next,_ Knuckles tried to distract himself.

He rushed through the small forest surrounding the shrine until he came to the edge of Angel Island. From there, Knuckles looked out at the continent below and tried to pick out any landmarks he could use to identify the wandering island's location. "Where's that atlas Chris gave me?" Knuckles grumbled to himself, searching until he found the large book in a hedge nearby where he kept it. "Ah, here we are. Let's see... Strange looking buildings... A big wall..." he continued to mumble as Knuckles thumbed through the pages. "Oh, here it is! China! Wow, it's been a long time since Angel Island wandered all the way over here. In fact, the last time was, uhh... was..." Knuckles rubbed his chin as he tried to remember.

Finally it all came back to him. _Oh yeah! I was exploring some kind of ruins and ended up rescuing Hawk! Then we got kidnapped, escaped, he gave me the shovel claws... Oh, and then who could forget that crazy three-way running fight over the red Chaos Emerald between us, Rouge, and Eggman's assassin bot. I wonder how Hawk is doing now? It's been a while since I saw him, and I did promise to come visit someday..._

Knuckles stopped to ponder this idea for a minute. He could use his influence with the Master Emerald to halt Angel Island's movement for a while. Then, while it was hovering in place somewhere safe enough that no one could reach it, Knuckles could glide down for a quick visit. He doubted anyone would disturb the Master Emerald while he was gone. The last time anyone had shown any interest in it at all was the whole debacle on Space Colony Ark. Since then, not even Eggman had tried to steal it. And Knuckles knew that Rouge, the only other major threat to the Master Emerald, was working for G.U.N. now on the other side of the world. So, even unguarded for just a little while, it should be safe enough...

 _No! No! No! Why am I even thinking about doing this?_ Knuckles growled at himself as he clenched his fists. _What kind of guardian just leaves his post completely unprotected? And for what? To go see a friend because he's lonely? I'm better than this! I can...! Can...!_ Knuckles cast his gaze repeatedly towards the Master Emerald's shrine and back towards the landscape slowly passing by below. _I suppose I can spare just one short trip,_ he finally decided with a sigh.

* * *

 _It sure has been a long time,_ Knuckles reminisced seeing the rundown streets and street corner vendors of a small Chinese city. _This place doesn't seem to have changed a bit, though. It all looks the same as when Hawk and I..._ Knuckles was suddenly interrupted from his memories as a slightly heavyset man in a white collared shirt and khaki pants stepped out in front of him.

"Well, well, well... If it ain't Knuckles himself! Haven't seen you around here in ages, have we?" the man disturbingly laughed.

It honestly took Knuckles a while to recognize the face, but the deep chuckle suddenly brought it all back to the red echidna's mind. "You! You're the mob boss that kidnapped me and Hawk! And tried to serve us all that terrible prison food!"

"Wha'dya know, boys? He actually remembers us!" the man chuckled again as Knuckles slowly found himself surrounded by thugs, no less than ten. "I've been waiting for a long time for you to show up, bub! I'm gonna make you pay for making a fool out of me; escaping with my prisoner and my treasure!"

"Are you still mad about Hawk and I escaping your prison cell and grabbing the chaos emerald before you could?" Knuckles smiled as he recognized the glare that the older man gave him. "Well, I may still be mad that you locked us up in the first place!" Knuckles said as he folded his arms across his chest defiantly.

"Then I guess it's personal," retorted the familiar boss, snapping his fingers once. "Get him guys! I want him pulverized!"

All ten men rushed at Knuckles at once. Knuckles assumed a defensive stance and waited for the attackers to get into range, undaunted by the unfair numbers of ten to one odds. Rather than attack when they were close enough, however, Knuckles simply ducked and rolled out of the center of the rapidly closing circle at the last second. All the men simply collided together in a heap where he had once stood.

"Come on! Don't tell me you've waited all this time for revenge and this is all you got, old man!" taunted Knuckles.

"Rrrr...! Quit fooling around and get him!" the aging boss shouted to his men.

Suddenly, Knuckles found himself surrounded again by the men, only this time they had knives drawn. _Whoa! They actually mean business this time!_ Knuckles warned himself. One man quickly lunged forward from the circle and slashed his knife at the level of Knuckles' throat. Knuckles easily defeated the strike to his jugular with a quick step backwards and countered by grabbing the assailant's wrist, twisting it until the man lost his grip on his knife, and finally hurling the man over his shoulder into another attacker behind him. A loud scream from his victim told Knuckles that he was now only out-manned 9 to 1.

 _Right, I forgot that humans aren't as resilient as us Mobians are,_ Knuckles thought as he wondered if he'd done permanent damage to that man's wrist. If he was feeling sorry for the man, though, Knuckles didn't let it show outwardly. He grinned as the other men stared in disbelief at the ease of Knuckles' devastating counter attack. _These men are definitely not professionals. I have them spooked!_

"Hyaahhhh!" shouted one of the remaining men as he foolishly announced his attack. Knuckles sidestepped a flurry of stabs to the chest and retaliated with a lightning-fast uppercut. His fist collided with the man's jaw, emitting a sickening noise of breaking bones. The man instantly slumped down onto the street from the one hit KO.

 _Dang, too rough again? I'm only trying to defend myself, not rack up a body count!_ Knuckles grew frustrated with this fight. It was very difficult for him to pull his punches when surrounded by goons that were trying to kill him. _If they keep coming one at a time, maybe I can restrain myself so I don't accidentally kill anybody..._

As if the remaining men could read minds, his assailants closed the circle by taking a couple more steps forward in a coordinated group. A quick movement by the man to Knuckles' ten o'clock position spurred the echidna into a dodge to the right. The attack was only a feint, however, and now the man that Knuckles had turned his back to took advantage of the echidna's distraction. With a swift backhanded slash, the man laid open a large diagonal gash in Knuckles' exposed backside from his left shoulder to his right mid-torso.

"Aaaahhhh!" shouted out Knuckles at the pain of having his back laid open by the sharp knife. He realized too late that he had seriously underestimated his remaining eight to one disadvantage, and he'd payed the price for his overconfidence. Seeing the moment of weakness in the otherwise invincible echidna, all the other men advanced rapidly with their knives ready.

"You think that one cut is enough to stop me?" hollered Knuckles in a rage, "Think again!" He quickly spun into a red whirlwind of punches, jabs, kicks, and thrusts as the men began their attack en masse. His aggressive assault beat back several attackers immediately, all of them knocked out cold. Those who escaped his initial punishment were engaged individually and pummeled mercilessly. One man took a powerful kick full force to the stomach and coughed up blood. Another unlucky soul was nailed in the hip by a mighty punch and crumpled to the pavement, paralyzed at least temporarily from the waist down. The two final men were KO'd by Knuckles smashing their two skulls together, which probably did less harm than if he'd punched them both in the same area.

As he looked around at his handiwork, Knuckles saw ten men all strewn about the alleyway. A few where attempting to limp or crawl away, a couple were still screaming in pain, and the rest were out cold in the middle of the road. Every single one of Knuckles' defeated assailants would need medical attention of some sort. _I may have overdone it just a little with that last part,_ Knuckles realized as his rage cooled to allow him a pang of guilt for the brutally mauled bodies all around him.

"No one makes a fool of me!" yelled the mob boss as he stared slack-jawed at his best men all mutilated in the street. He drew a loaded pistol in his right hand and aimed directly at Knuckles' head. It all happened so fast. At the same time his finger tightened around the trigger, an unknown voice suddenly shouted out. Milliseconds later, a heavy chuck of brick hit the old mobster's face from the side, and, at the exact same time, a gunshot rang out and echoed through the street.

* * *

Knuckles grunted in pain as he ground his teeth from the stinging of the alcohol on his bare wound. Luckily, the large diagonal gash was superficial only; no muscles or other important parts of his body had been sliced. A strip of gauze bandage was quickly fastened to the entire length of the now dressed wound, and Knuckles was permitted to turn back around to face his Good Samaritan.

It was none other than the very person he had come here originally to find, Hawk. Knuckles noted how Hawk was still slightly rotund and a head taller than him like the last time they met. Knuckles had seen enough humans at this point to realize that still made Hawk a bit short from the average man, though. They shared a kindred love for treasure hunting that had forged into a strong friendship that Knuckles knew he could count on, and today was living proof of that. "Heh, I guess that I owe you one now, right?" Knuckles mentioned to his old buddy.

"No way, Knuckles! You see, now we're even," replied Hawk. "I heard the commotion in the street and snuck up to have a peek, and boy was I surprised to see you there! I wanted to help, but you seemed to have things under control... mostly," the man grimaced as his eyes traced briefly to the long bandage on Knuckles' back. "But then that guy pulled a gun and... I mean, you're tough and all, but you're not Sonic who could just outrun a bullet."

"Should I be taking this as a compliment or an insult?" Knuckles folded his arms as he complained.

"No, no! Sorry, I just meant that I knew you needed my help!" Hawk waved his hands in front of him as he clarified his statement. "I'm just lucky that brick knocked his aim off right as he shot at you. I had no idea it would actually knock him completely out cold, too."

"Guess you just don't know your own strength, buddy," Knuckles smirked in reply. "Too bad you didn't have any bricks to throw to save yourself that first time I met you. Remember? In that ruined temple?"

"Gee, Knuckles, you had to bring that up again?" Hawk looked embarrassed as he recalled the crazy events. "I'm not sure how useful bricks would have been against that falling ceiling trap. But against that crazy bat or the weird ninja robot thingy... maybe?"

"With your arm, I doubt you could hit either of them," Knuckles teased with a grin. "But, hey, at least you managed to clobber that big mob boss like we both wanted to ever since we escaped his dungeon."

"Eh heh, yeah, he's been giving me a lot of trouble ever since that whole debacle," Hawk revealed with a satisfied smirk. "I've had to lay pretty low so his goons couldn't find me and, well, pretty much do what they just tried to do to you."

"You've been on the run this whole time?" Knuckles was shocked to hear this news. "Hawk, you should have said something! If I'd have known they were after you, I could've..."

"I know, I know. It's not your fault, Knuckles. Besides, it's hard to get a hold of someone that lives on a flying island with no means of communication," Hawk tried to downplay Knuckles' guilt. "The important thing is that they're dealt with now, so I don't have to keep hiding anymore."

"Now I just wish that I'd visited you again sooner. Sorry pal," Knuckles still felt like a terrible friend, leaving a partner in danger like that for so long.

"Like I said, Knuckles, everything turned out all right, so there's no hard feelings," Hawk simply smiled at the downcast echidna. "In fact, you came back at a perfect time! I just found something important you'll probably want to keep safe with you." At that, Hawk casually tossed a small brown sack to Knuckles.

Knuckles easily snatched the roughly-sewn bag from the air. He gave Hawk a curious glance as the tiny sack felt light for its size, but something inside clearly took up most of the bag regardless. The red echidna untied the string at the top and stared in amazement at the bright red glittering object inside. "No way! This is...!"

"I guess you're not the _only_ successful emerald hunter in the world now, huh?" Hawk laughed at Knuckles' shocked expression. "I found that in the middle of the jungle on a recent expedition. I was sure you'd probably need it back, so I held on to it for you."

"I can't believe it! The same red Chaos Emerald from when we first met... What are the odds?" Knuckles chuckled as he removed the emerald from the sack it had been concealed in and turned it over in his white-gloved hands. It was almost like he couldn't believe it was really here in front of him, but there was no mistaking the appearance of a Chaos Emerald.

"That's exactly what I thought when I found it!" Hawk laughed at Knuckles' dumbstruck expression. "Go on, buddy, it's yours."

"Last time you only agreed to give this to me because I saved your life, remember? This time you're just handing it over after saving mine?" Knuckles quickly pointed out.

"I saved you from a gun. You saved me from the whole gang ran by the man holding the gun. The way I see it, I still owe you more," Hawk reasoned, and it was hard for Knuckles to come up with any way of refuting his logic. "Besides, all I can do with it is try to sell it, which will probably get Eggman's attention and he'd come steal it from me again. I'm better off letting you have it."

"Heh, fair enough then," Knuckles returned the emerald to its small pouch and gave Hawk a firm handshake of gratitude. "Say I did want to pay you back sometime, though? Or just visit again? You got any ideas for another adventure we could take together?"

Hawk's face lit up in excitement at Knuckles' question. "I was really hoping you would ask, actually! See, I just started researching this new artifact... the world's oldest map!"

"A map?" Knuckles seemed confused. "Aren't maps supposed to point _at_ treasure, not _be_ the treasure?"

"Of course, Knuckles! It's said there's a landmass on this map that doesn't appear on any other maps after it. It could be the lost island of Meracia!" Hawk enthusiastically explained.

"Meracia, huh? Never heard of it," Knuckles simply shrugged.

"Legends suggest it was an ancient civilization with highly advanced technology for its time, but something happened that caused the entire island to sink into the sea. Imagine if we could actually find the location of Meracia and prove it really exists!" Hawk pumped his fists in excitement.

"Heh, sounds kinda fishy to me, but if you don't mind me hanging around..." Knuckles smirked at how eager Hawk was.

"YES! Oh, thank you, thank you, Knuckles!" Hawk literally leaped in joy as a huge smile beamed on his face. "There's still a lot of research and collaboration with a museum in the U.S. to deal with, though, so it might be a few weeks before anything's ready to go search."

"Just let me know when and where and I'll be there," Knuckles promised with a grin of his own.

"Thanks again, Knuckles! I know it can't be easy for you to leave Angel Island and the Master Emerald unattended like this, but your friendship means a lot to me," Hawk shook hands with the echidna again.

"Yeah, to me too. Now... Wait, what did you say?" Knuckles suddenly felt like he'd been jolted awake from a dream as he remembered his abandoned duty for the first time all day.

"Um, that I appreciated you spending all day with me instead of..." Hawk started to repeat, but never got to finish.

"All day?!" Knuckles panicked and raced to the closest window. Outside it was a gorgeous evening sunset full of orange hues against a red sun on the horizon. And silhouetted against the setting sun was a large flying island slowly moving away from the city, much to Knuckles' horror. "No, no, no! It was supposed to wait for me! I'M COMING MASTER EMERALD!" the appalled guardian leapt from the second floor window and immediately gave chase, gliding through the air as he shouted futilely for Angel Island to stop.

Hawk just laughed to himself as he watched Knuckles quickly disappear into the sunset in pursuit of his runaway island. "He sure is a great friend, that Knuckles. Maybe next time I should get him a watch?"


	5. Chapter 5: Sick as a Fox

**Chapter 5: Sick as a Fox**

It was back to business as usual in the Thorndike mansion on Monday morning after the big ski trip. Chris was already off to school. Mr. Tanaka was catching up on his usual duties that had been neglected in his absence. Chuck had been in his workshop all morning since breakfast, attempting to defrost and repair the half-frozen and mostly wrecked X-Tornado. Meanwhile, Ella was giving Amy some cooking lessons, and, judging by the delicious smells coming from the kitchen, things were going well. Sonic had returned from his customary morning jog as well, now napping on his favorite spot up on the top of the mansion's roof.

That left Cream and her mother, Vanilla, together in the mansion's living room. The television was off as the older rabbit sat next to a couple balls of yarn, crocheting a simple zigzag patterned blanket. Cream and her pet Chao, Cheese, were busy entertaining themselves with a simple board game on the room's nearby coffee table.

"Chao, Chao!" Cheese cried out triumphantly, flying over and moving his colorful token into the winner's circle on the game board.

"You won again?! No fair, Cheese! How come you always get the cards that let you move farther?" Cream crossed her arms and pouted.

Cheese just gave a proud smile as he did a little victory dance hovering over the Candy Cane Forest.

"Hmph! Well that's it! I'm done playing this game!" Cream got up in a huff and left the table with her hands clenched.

"Chao?" Cheese stopped dancing to watch his partner leave, wondering if he'd done something wrong to make her so angry. He quickly flew up to her and tugged gently on her ear. "Chao? Chao chao?"

"No, I am not playing that game again with you, Cheese," Cream stubbornly refused, still upset by her string of losses.

"What seems to be the matter, dear?" Vanilla finally put down her project for a moment to deal with the growing 'crisis'.

"Cheese keeps beating me at this game, and now I don't want to play anymore! I think he's cheating!" Cream answered with her arms crossed.

"Chao Chao!" Cheese shouted back at Cream, crossing his own arms in anger from her accusation.

"Now, now, you two..." Vanilla sighed. "Cream, I'm certain that Cheese wasn't cheating. Has he ever cheated in a game with you before?"

"Well... No," Cream's stiff stance softened a little. "At least, not that I ever noticed."

"Well then, why would you assume Cheese was cheating now if he's always played fair in the past?" Vanilla led Cream to the next step in her chain of reasoning.

"Because he's always winning! He has to be doing _something_ to keep getting all the good cards!" Cream pleaded her case earnestly.

"Not necessarily, dear. It's called luck for a reason," Vanilla tried to explain. "Sometimes you have good luck and sometimes bad luck. It's all part of the game."

Cream didn't have an immediate reply to that argument. "But... It's not fun when you have bad luck for several games in a row," she finally stated.

"I know, dear. It's not. Perhaps you and Cheese should do something else for a while, like playing outside?" Vanilla suggested with a smile.

"I don't know, mommy... What do you think, Cheese?" Cream quickly asked her partner.

Cheese tapped his chin for a couple seconds to think, then shook his head with a bored sigh.

"Yeah, me too. We've done just about everything there is to do out there," Cream agreed despondently.

"Then what if the two of you were to play with someone you don't usually get to play with?" the clever mother responded.

"But who is that?" Cream quickly asked. "I play with you and Amy all the time. Chris is at school. All the other humans here are all busy. I guess we could ask Mr. Sonic, but he usually doesn't like to be disturbed from his naps," she quickly rattled off the whole list of subjects to choose from for playmates, all of them with reasons they couldn't be asked.

"Aren't you forgetting someone, sweetie?" Vanilla smirked as she took up her needles again to resume working on her project.

"Chao?" Cheese seemed confused, tapping his chin again.

Cream was equally stumped. Let's see, she'd named off her mother, Amy, Chris, Ella, Mr. Tanaka, Chuck, and Sonic... "Oh! Tails!" she exclaimed proudly. "Do you know what he's up to right now, mommy?"

"To be honest, no, dear," Vanilla replied. "I didn't even see him at breakfast, come to think of it. Hmm... Maybe I should check on him," she worried a bit. This wasn't like Tails at all. He was usually an early riser and would be busy helping Chuck with the X-Tornado repairs. Although, she did figure that his injuries from the fight with Eggman might be forcing the fox to take things slow today.

"Oh! We can do that for you, mommy!" Cream's ears perked up slightly as she realized she finally had something interesting to do.

"That's very nice of you to offer, sweetie," Vanilla had already put her project back down when her daughter made the offer. She was just about to stand up and insist that she do it herself anyway, but then the adult Mobian reconsidered. "Yes, why don't you and Cheese go check on Tails for me?" she finally nodded her consent.

"Okay! Come on, Cheese, let's go!" Cream rushed off in excitement, her Chao friend following right behind her.

They hurried out of the living room and into the big front hall of the manor. Here Cream paused at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. So nobody had seen Tails at breakfast this morning? Maybe that meant he was still in bed? It seemed unlikely, but Cream decided to start her search there. She happily skipped up the steps and down the hall to where she knew Sonic and Tails shared a room. Cream had always wondered why, honestly. It's not like Chris's house had a shortage of bedrooms so they were forced to share one. There was more than enough rooms for everyone to have their own. Apparently Sonic and Tails just liked sharing a small room.

When she lightly knocked on the door, it surprisingly swung open a crack. Apparently the last person to come out of the room hadn't pulled it all the way shut till it latched. Cream imagined that was probably Sonic given his natural impatience. Well, if no one was answering and the door was already a bit open...

Cream pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the room quietly. It was dark inside, but she thought she could make out a figure in the second bed. Two white-tipped tails sticking out from the covers on the side closest to her gave her the positive identification she was looking for. Tails really was still asleep? Cream frowned in concern at this unusual behavior as she approached the bed quietly.

Tails seemed restless in his sleep as he stirred under the covers. Was he having a bad dream, Cream wondered? If so, maybe she should wake him up? He'd certainly slept long enough already... "Okay, Cheese. Let's wake Tails up really nicely so he'll want to play with us," Cream softly whispered to her companion.

Cheese nodded and flew over to the other side of the bed, right in front of the sleeping fox's face. He prodded Tails' muzzle once. After no response, he placed both hands on the fox's cheek and shook him a little bit. Still nothing. Frustrated, Cheese inhaled sharply and... "CHAAAAAOOO!"

"WAAAAHH!" Tails screamed in surprise as the loud yell jolted him awake. Fast as lightning, he sat bolt upright in bed. That was a mistake. "Aaah! Ow, ow, ow!" Tails winced in pain as both hands shot up to hold his aching head.

"Oh no! Tails, are you all right?" Cream quickly gasped at seeing the still bandaged fox in pain.

"Ooo... Yeah, I'm fine, Cream. I just got up too quick," Tails responded after a minute when the throbbing in his skull mostly faded. "I guess my head's still hurting from the crash. Wait, what are you two doing waking me up so early?" he now asked in curiosity.

"Early?" Cream giggled along with Cheese. "Tails, it's almost noon! You slept in all morning!"

"What?!" Tails' eyes went wide in shock. He couldn't believe what she was telling him. He never slept in this late! "Cream, are you sure?" he asked before covering his mouth to cough.

"Of course I am, silly! Chris left for school hours ago after we all had breakfast, and Cheese and I have been playing together all morning since then," Cream reported with a satisfied grin.

"Really? Wow, I just can't believe it," Tails muttered. "I guess my body just needed some extra rest to heal then," he reasoned as he tried to stretch his arms, but had to quickly snap one back to his face to cover another couple coughs. He realized now that he still felt really achy all over. Tails expected to feel a lot better than this after such a long rest.

"So, umm... Tails?" Cream folded her hands in front of her and gave her best puppy dog eyes. "Cheese and I were wondering... Would you please come play with us? Pretty please?"

Tails chuckled at the cute request. How could anyone say no to that? "Sure, Cream. Just give me a moment to..." Tails broke off as he started coughing again, this time finally realizing something wasn't right.

Cream and Cheese quickly realized the same thing as they watched. "Tails? Are you sure you're feeling all right?" Cream showed clear concern in her voice.

"Don't worry, Cream. I feel fi-i-aa-aaaAAHHH-CHOOO!" Tails sneezed loudly, barely managing to turn his head away as Cheese flew for cover behind Cream.

"Chao! Chao Chao, Chao!" Cheese exclaimed in fright as the Chao peeked out from behind Cream's ears.

"Sorry, Cheese," Tails sniffled, wiping his nose on the back of his gloved hand as the only thing currently handy.

"Tails, maybe you shouldn't play with us right now. I think you might be getting sick," Cream finally stated the obvious.

"Sick? Me?" Tails responded in denial. "Cream, I don't think I've ever been sick a day of my life since I was really little. So why would I be...?" but, again, Tails had his words cut off by his own coughing.

"Well, there is one thing that my mommy does to see if I'm really sick or not," Cream thought out loud. A bit nervously, she raised her hand up towards Tails' head.

"Cream? What are you...?"

"Sshh, relax, Tails. I'm just checking your forehead, okay? My mommy does this to me when I'm sick to see if I'm running a fever," Cream explained what she was trying to do.

Tails decided not to complain, sniffling his nose as he let the back of her hand touch his forehead. It only took a moment for Cream to notice how burning hot it was, pulling her hand away quickly with a worried expression. "Oh no, Cheese! It's really hot! I... I need to go get mommy!" Cream quickly decided. Tails had no mother to care for him right now, but she firmly decided that he needed one.

"Wait, Cream! There's no need to concern Mrs. Vanilla or anyone else! I'll be fine in just a m-AAAAH-CHOO!" Tails tried to stop the young bunny and Chao from spreading the news, but he was already too late. Even as he stretched his hand out to stop them, the two had already dashed out of the room and back down the stairs to fetch her mother.

The small rabbit skidded around the corner as she came racing off the bottom of the staircase, Cheese in hot pursuit with his wings beating rapidly to keep up. "Mooooommy! Mommy!" Cream shouted as she ran to the living room where she'd last seen her mother.

Alarmed by the commotion, Mrs. Vanilla quickly hurried out into the hall to intercept her shouting daughter. "Cream, dear! What's the matter?" she asked in great concern as both Cream and Cheese barely came to a stop before they collided with the older rabbit.

"It's... It's Tails!" Cream panted a bit, an extremely worried expression in her eyes. "I went to check on him like you asked, and he was coughing and sneezing and his forehead felt really hot! I think Tails is sick!" she reported frantically.

"Calm down, dear," Mrs. Vanilla put a hand on her daughter's shoulder as she leaned down closer. "This is troubling news, yes, but not a life or death emergency. Everyone gets sick sometimes. Although, come to think of it, I honestly never heard of Tails feeling unwell before."

"But mommy..." Cream looked up at her mother with big, caring eyes. "Whenever I'm sick, you always take care of me until I feel better. Who's going to do that for Tails?" the bunny shared her real concern.

Vanilla smiled down at her kind-hearted child. "I will, sweetie. Like you said, if Tails is sick, he's going to need someone to care for him. And you can help me if Tails needs you too, right?"

"Of course! Tails and I are friends!" Cream nodded with a smile.

"Chao, Chaooo!" Cheese also agreed with a similar expression.

"Good," Vanilla returned the radiant smiles with her own for a moment. "Now, please go tell the others what's going on, but calmly," she commanded gently as she stood back up.

"Okay, mom! Come on, Cheese!" Cream obeyed immediately, dashing off towards the kitchen where she knew Ella and Amy would still be.

Vanilla watched her daughter run off with a proud smile. She could only hope Cream's caring, innocent heart would remain this way forever. It reassured her that she was being raised correctly when Vanilla had these moments with her daughter. She'd often wondered if the risk of letting Cream be around Sonic, Amy and the others was borderline reckless endangerment from all the times her daughter ended up in harm's way with them. It was hard as a mother to accept that level of constant peril, but she couldn't hardly argue against it when Cream was flourishing like she was. Oh, but thinking about being a caring mother... Vanilla remembered that a certain sick fox was in need of her now, turning to ascend the stairs and make her way down the hall.

She was surprised to find the door to Sonic and Tails' shared room standing open as she approached. Undoubtedly Cream and Cheese had raced off to come find her in such a hurry that they left it open. Oh well, that just meant she wouldn't have to knock first as Vanilla turned to enter the room.

"Tails, deary? How are you feel...?" her words were cut off as her nose picked up a strong, awful odor coming from inside the room. It didn't take Vanilla long to locate the source, either. Tails was sitting up in bed with one hand on his stomach and the other on the desk he used for a nightstand to steady himself. On the sheets of the bed and the carpeted floor beside it, a putrid liquid slurry was slowly soaking into the different fabrics. Vanilla couldn't help but cover her mouth and nose for a moment against the oppressive stench.

"Ooooghh... Mrs. Vanilla, I'm... so sorry!" Tails looked about ready to burst into tears at what he'd done. "After Cream left, I started to feel sick to my stomach. So I sat up to try and keep it down, but then it just...!"

"Shhh, it's okay, dear," Vanilla quickly consoled the distraught fox. "It was just an accident. These things happen. Let's just get you out of that soiled bed and cleaned up," she ignored her own disgust and approached the bedside boldly to extend a hand towards Tails.

"I'm still sorry, Mrs. Vanilla. This is so gross," the fox complained as he took her hand and slowly got up from his bed, coughing several times as the mother rabbit gently guided him away from the mess.

"It's all right, Tails," the motherly rabbit pretended not to even notice the stench as she brought him in close to herself. "You couldn't have known it would happen so fast. It's not your fault. Ella will clean up the mess while we find you somewhere else to rest," she comforted him.

As if on cue, there was an exclamation as Ella arrived at the door. "Oh my! Such a mess!" the Hispanic maid fretted as she hurried in to examine the damage done to the sheets and the carpet. "Oh dear! Sweet little Cream came in to tell me and Amy that you weren't feeling well, Tails, but I never imagined that I would find this!"

"Sorry, Ella," Tails sniffled his nose as Vanilla used a handkerchief to wipe off the few small spots of vomit on his muzzle and chest.

"No, no, dear! Don't be upset like your stomach! Messes like this are the reason I keep my job," Ella turned to Tails with a proud expression. "Besides, Mr. Thorndike asked me if I would try out a new carpet cleaner his company just designed, and this is the perfect mess to give it a real workout! Mrs. Vanilla, if you please, could you take Tails up to Chris's room to rest?"

"Chris's room?" Tails sounded puzzled at the choice. "But, Ella, aren't there other guest bedrooms in the house that aren't even being used right now?"

"Of course there are, dear!" Ella replied without missing a beat, starting to gather up the soiled sheets. "But Chris's room is much nicer. There's more room, and a view from the balcony to let you get a little sunshine or a fresh breeze, plus a television to watch."

"And Chris won't be using it anytime soon because he's away at school right now," Mrs. Vanilla also added as she agreed with Ella's decision.

"Exactly! By the time he comes home, I'll have this room so clean that Sonic might think we were moving him out!" Ella laughed despite the odious task she was performing at the same time.

"Oh, I get it. I'm just moving to Chris's room long enough to clean this one again," Tails understood. "I guess that sounds okay... But what if I get sick again in Chris's bed, too?" he quickly worried.

"Don't worry, sweetie! I'll bring you a new trash can to sit by the bed," Ella again had an immediate solution for the problem. "If you feel like it's going to happen again, you can just make sure that it all goes in there instead of all over the bed or the floor. Now please get going before everything stains!" Ella commanded, since she needed the two Mobians out of the room so she could work freely.

"Come along, Tails," Mrs. Vanilla gave him a comforting smile as she took his hand and escorted the coughing fox out of the room and back down to the other end of the upstairs hallway.

* * *

A few hours later, and Tails was laying in Chris's nice, large bed, holding up a TV remote in one hand as he idly flicked through channel after channel of boring, uninteresting shows. Soap opera... soap opera... shopping channel... news channel that repeats the same stories every hour... the ten millionth prescription drug commercial he'd seen today... Honestly, did the TV broadcast companies just assume that anyone watching television in the early afternoon instead of being at work or at school probably didn't have anything better to do with their life and likely had some kind of condition that kept them at home in the first place? Tails groaned as he gave up and just left it on a channel showing some sort of nature documentary with a really monotonous narrator that made the somewhat interesting visuals on the screen seem as boring as reading a textbook. Maybe if he was lucky the voice would lull him to sleep eventually.

Thankfully, there was a knock on the door to distract him. "Come in!" Tails had to fight to get his voice loud enough for the person on the other side of the door to hear. The sore throat was a new symptom that he'd noticed in the last couple of hours, making it painful to talk or swallow, as if his fever and aches weren't enough torture already. At least his stomach had calmed down for now, Tails thought.

At his invitation, the door swung open to reveal an interesting sight; Sonic carrying a large tray of food and a drink for Tails. "Heya, bro! How ya feelin'?" Sonic asked with a smirk, knowing that Tails would be surprised to find the blue hedgehog being the one to deliver him a meal.

"Sonic?!" Tails was indeed astonished as he sat up, expecting Mrs. Vanilla or Ella or just about anyone else to be the one coming in with the care package. Not that Tails doubted that the blue hedgehog cared enough to do something nice for him, but this kind of servitude just wasn't Sonic's usual style.

"Surprised to see me?" Sonic chuckled. "I figured I gotta take care of my little bro somehow, right? You've had it pretty rough lately with that crash and now being sick on top of it all."

"Ugh, tell me about it," Tails groaned as he laid back in bed. "You could fry an egg on my forehead right now, Sonic. And my body feels like one of Eggman's robots used me for target practice. Is it always this terrible when someone feels sick?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Sonic laughed a bit again. "Not that I have a lot of experience, either, to tell you the truth. But, hey, at least you get to watch as much TV as you want."

"No thanks," Tails just moaned again. "I'd much rather be working on fixing up the X-Tornado, but Chuck won't let me help! He says I just need to rest. But I've tried that, and I always feel so terrible that I just can't get to sleep! Nothing on the TV is any good to watch right now, either! So I'm just laying here feeling horrible with nothing to do to distract me! And even if I had something to do, I'd probably feel too lousy to actually do it!"

Sonic took a sympathetic look at his closest buddy. He'd never seen Tails this miserable and grouchy before. Normally he could always count on his little bro to have an optimistic smile on his face, but not right now. Sonic almost wondered if this was how he himself might act if someone forced him to stay in bed for a whole day. "Cheer up, bud. Ella says this soup she made should start to make ya feel better in no time!" Sonic tried his best to sound reassuring.

"I guess it _has_ been a while since I ate anything," Tails muttered as he accepted the tray and placed it on his lap. Tails wondered, when was the last time he actually ate? He slept through breakfast this morning, and yesterday he'd only eaten a small snack on the ride home from the ski resort because he was too injured and tired to feel like eating his dinner following the plane crash. The more he thought about it, the more Tails realized he was actually starving.

He eagerly took the lid off the round tray and was greeted by a soothing aroma from the still steaming soup underneath. "Mmmm! Chicken noodle!" Tails actually grinned for the first time all day as he smelled the almost therapeutic scent. He wasted no time grabbing a spoonful of the soup and putting it in his mouth. Ooooh yes! It was just as delicious as it smelled! The chicken bits and noodles were soft enough to hardly require any chewing, and the warm broth felt great on his throat as Tails swallowed the first bite.

"Delicious! Tell Ella thanks a million, Sonic!" Tails smiled broadly as he went for another bite. "Finally, something about being sick that's not aaa-AAAAH-CHOOO!" the fox unexpectedly let out a violent sneeze. During the sneeze, he accidentally knocked over the tray in his lap, his wonderful soup and drink immediately spilling out onto the floor beside Chris's bed.

"NO! No no no!" Tails shouted as he realized his mistake, but it was too late. The contents of the bowl were scattered all over the carpet now with the bowl itself upside down near the bedside. "Oh, COME ON! How can this day get any worse?!" Tails growled in frustration, his sudden activity causing him to go into a short coughing fit.

"Hey, cool down, bro," Sonic offered a sympathetic hand on the coughing fox's shoulder to try and calm him. "Come on, you're giving an all new meaning to being 'hot headed' right now."

Tails rolled his eyes as his coughing finally subsided. "This isn't a time for jokes, Sonic," he replied angrily.

"Sure it is, bud," Sonic flashed his best grin. "Look, at least you didn't get any on you or the bed, right? So I'll just step right back downstairs and tell Ella what happened, and she'll fix you up a new bowl of soup and clean this mess in no time."

"Another mess?" a new voice made both Sonic and Tails turn towards the door where Vanilla was just walking in. "Oh dear, were you sick to your stomach again, Tails? I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but I heard Tails shout and didn't know someone was in here with him."

"It's all right, Mrs. Vanilla," Tails looked a bit sheepish now. He hadn't intended for his outburst of annoyance to be overheard by anyone other than Sonic, much less cause any more concern. "I just spilled my soup is all."

"Oh you poor dear... Did it burn you?" Vanilla hurried over to Tails' bedside to check on him.

"No, no! Like Sonic was just saying, I'm lucky that it all missed me," Tails quickly put her fears to rest.

But Vanilla's concern wasn't just for the soup as she placed a hand on the fox's forehead gingerly. "Oh my! Are you sure, Tails? Because if this isn't because of a burn, then it can only mean your fever is getting worse," the mother replied. It was fairly obvious to her without even a thermometer that Tails was hotter than this morning, and his damp, sweaty fur now all but proved it.

"Well, now that you mention it, Mrs. Vanilla, I do feel a bit more lousy than earlier," Tails admitted with a frown.

"Not to mention more irritable," Sonic pointed out in a teasing manner, earning a sharp glare from Tails. But before Tails could come back with any sort of comment, Chuck hurried into the room.

"Hey, Tails! I just wanted to stop by and see how you were do..." Chuck paused as he saw the tray and all its contents spilled out on the floor. "Oh, doing a bit of redecorating while you're here?" he chuckled at Tails.

"That's not funny, Chuck!" Tails shouted as he crossed his arms angrily.

This made the older man do a double take in shock. Had Tails just shouted at him? Tails? Angry? "Whoa there! Sorry, Tails, I didn't mean anything by it!" Chuck quickly apologized even though Tails' shouting clearly shook him up a bit.

"Don't take it too personal, Chuck," Sonic explained with a shrug. "He's just not feeling up to bein' too polite right now."

Tails balled his fists and growled, about to have another outburst at the way Sonic decided to word his explanation, but he was thankfully interrupted by Mrs. Vanilla gently pushing him back down into a reclining position.

"You need to rest now, Tails," Vanilla spoke firmly, but nicely. As upset as Tails might have felt towards either Chuck or Sonic at the moment, he couldn't possibly bring himself to project that anger on the kind-hearted mother, so the fox reluctantly laid down obediently. "I will go get you a nice, cool towel for your head," she offered, quickly hurrying from the room once the fox was tucked back in.

"Gee, Tails, you really do look miserable," Chuck mentioned as Vanilla left on her quick errand. Tails was coughing as he rolled and tossed under the covers, trying to find any position that felt reasonably comfy. From the looks of things, that wasn't working out for him very well, either.

"Thanks for noticing," Tails simply groaned back, a bit of snarkiness in his voice as he closed his eyes and tried to rest as best he could.

This got a short chuckle from both Sonic and Chuck before the elderly man remembered the other reason he'd come. "Well, at least I have good news for you, Tails. The doctors with the government that I've been in contact with all seem to agree that your Mobian physiology has enough similarities to humans that our pharmaceutical drugs should also be reasonably effective for your kind as well."

"Wait, Tails' what is similar to who-the-what?" Sonic scratched his head in confusion.

"He means that I should be able to take human medicine safely, Sonic," Tails interpreted.

"Right, and given that the most likely diagnosis of your condition, Tails, is still probably some minor infection or cold of some sort, they went ahead and authorized a broad spectrum prescription antibiotic," Chuck continued, showing a piece of paper he was holding.

"Wait, you just said Tails had something minor, but that other stuff sounds pretty bad!" Sonic worried.

"No, Sonic. He's just talking about the medicine," Tails groaned again. Normally he didn't mind being smarter than his adopted older brother, but right now he just didn't feel like explaining everything like he normally did. "They aren't sure what to give me because we're different than humans, so they wanted to try something common that covers a lot of things first," Tails went ahead and continued his explanation anyway. It wasn't like he had anything better to do other than just laying there in bed feeling like an egg on a frying pan.

"Well why didn't ya just say _that,_ Chuck?" Sonic tapped his foot at the older man, a bit peeved that he was purposefully choosing vocabulary that he knew Sonic might not understand.

"Huh? Well, because I was mostly talking to Tails, not... Oh never mind," Chuck groaned, handing the paper over to Sonic. "Look, Sonic. Just take this prescription downtown to the drugstore at this address on the top, and they should give you some medicine that will hopefully get Tails feeling better," Chuck gave out the simple, easy to follow instructions.

"Now that's more my speed!" Sonic smirked with a big thumbs up. "Don't worry, bud. I'll be back with that medicine before you can even sneeze!"

"Thanks, Son..." Tails started to croak out a reply, but it was already too late as a blue streak sped out of the room, onto the balcony, leapt off onto the Thorndike's lawn and kept going like an arrow towards the city.

"Don't worry, Tails. We'll get you feeling better in no time," Chuck smiled as he patted Tails' hand. "You rest now. I've got to get back to work on the X-Tornado."

"Ugh... I really wish I felt up to helping you, Chuck," Tails grumbled miserably.

"I know, Tails. I know. But right now the best thing for you is to rest, okay?" Chuck gave a sympathetic grin.

"Yeah... okay," Tails mumbled, adjusting himself under the covers again to try and get into a position so he could sleep.

About that time when Chuck had just left the room, passing Mrs. Vanilla as she was returning with the cold towel, the television that Tails had forgotten about leaving on suddenly sounded with a loud alert tone. Intrigued, Tails immediately rolled back over to watch whatever sort of urgent news was happening.

 _"This is Scarlet Garcia reporting for Station Square's Live Action News. Citizens are being urged to immediately evacuate the downtown area of the city due to another giant robot attack led by the nefarious Dr. Eggman. As usual, the unprovoked attack seems to be an attempt by Dr. Eggman to take over the government, whose forces are proving ineffective yet again in combating the threat. There are no eyewitness reports of spotting famed hero Sonic the Hedgehog at this time. Stay tuned as we keep you up to date on developments as they occur in this latest crisis..."_

Tails shut the TV off as he tossed away the bedsheets and quickly sat up at the edge of the bed. He was already trying to put his trademark red and white sneakers on when Vanilla caught what the fox was doing.

"Tails, deary, you're not thinking about going to fight Eggman like this, are you?" she worried.

"I have to Mrs. Vanilla! The last time Eggman attacked me and Sonic, he would have gotten frozen solid without my help!" Tails recalled.

"But, you're in no condition to fight! And I don't know if Chuck has had enough time yet to get the X-Tornado fully repaired," Vanilla tried to gently talk Tails out of his plan.

"I'm sure it's fixed up enough to fly by now. I just have to... whoa..." Tails' hand shot out to grab Vanilla's dress as he suddenly felt very dizzy after standing up.

Vanilla was now even more alarmed as Tails nearly fell over, clutching her long skirt as support to keep himself upright. That did it. She couldn't allow Tails' fears for Sonic's safety get in the way of the fox's own needs at the moment. "Enough, Tails! You can't even stand up on your own right now, dear. Sonic will just have to do without you this time," Vanilla put her foot down as she scooped up the protesting fox in her surprisingly strong arms.

"No! Mrs. Vanilla, let me go! I have to...!" Tails shouted as he tried to squirm out of her iron grip.

"The only thing you have to do right now is rest, Tails," She refused to listen to any of his pleas, placing the upset kit back in the bed despite his protests.

"But, Mrs. Va...!"

"No buts, young man!" Vanilla finally gave the struggling fox a glare that froze him instantly. "Tails, you are too sick to be of any help to Sonic this time. He has fought Eggman many times without you and won, hasn't he?" she tried reasoning with the distraught patient.

"Well, yeah, sure, lots of times, actually," Tails was forced to admit reluctantly. "But what if this time he gets into trouble again and needs me to...?"

"You're just going to have to have faith in Sonic, Tails," Vanilla smiled in understanding. "I know you worry about him just like he worries about you, but he'll be fine. He's not going to let Eggman slow him down because he knows he has to get your medicine back to you."

"But...!"

All Vanilla had to do to hush Tails' final protest was to give him a stern sideways glance out the corner of her eye, and, with that, all further discussion was closed. She reached over to grab the remote, turning the television back on so the two of them could watch the inevitable clash between Sonic and Dr. Eggman. Tails slumped back onto his pillows with a groan, coughing again as Vanilla finally placed the cool, wet rag on his forehead. Oh well, at the very least, Tails thought, now there was something decent on TV to watch.

* * *

"Remind me why I'm hanging around this place again, girl?" the bored agent spoke into an earpiece in a hushed tone, tucked into the shadows underneath the balcony Sonic had just leapt from moments earlier.

" _Because as soon as the President's aids learned that a Mobian had gotten sick in our world, everyone was afraid of some sort of outbreak or epidemic that could be unlike anything we've ever seen before,_ " Topaz's voice could be heard through the communicator.

"Oh yeah, a reeeeal doozy, this one. The whole world might be sick in bed for a day," Rouge rolled her eyes at the typical overreaction of these silly humans. "Honestly, as a Mobian myself, don't I have the most risk of catching little foxy's cold than anyone else in G.U.N.?"

" _Not if you stay a good distance away and just observe like you were ordered to do,"_ Topaz came back with an annoyed tone. _"We really shouldn't even be using this channel to just talk, you know. Regulations state that..."_

"Ah, regulations, regulations... Always by the book with you," Rouge smirked. She knew Topaz couldn't actually see anything she was doing right now from inside the inconspicuous parked van a block away, but the smile felt natural regardless. She stretched her wings and yawned, finally deciding that this was enough boredom for one day. "Well how's this for your precious regulations, sweetheart? I'm out," Rouge reported as she allowed herself to drop from the balcony and take off in an effortless glide away from the mansion.

 _"What?! Rouge, you can't just choose to leave whenever you want to! This is an important mission!"_ Topaz's voice screamed back over the earpiece in shock.

"Forget it, girl. I'm through playing babysitter and waiting around to report back every time that fox blows his nose," Rouge refused to listen to her partner as she continued flying. "If the President has a _real_ job for me, then you know how to find me. Usual time, usual place."

 _"Rouge, this is serious! This is dereliction of duty! Get back there right now and...!"_

"Sorry, you're breaking up," Rouge chimed in with a singsong voice. Without even a hint of static, she just casually reached up to her ear and turned off the device with a single flick of her finger. "Ah, much better. It's so nice to get off work early for a change," she spoke to herself while sporting a Cheshire grin. "Maybe with my extra time I'll head back to the city and see if I'm not too late to catch the show." Watching Sonic trash one of Eggman's robots was always great entertainment, after all, so that's what she decided to do.


End file.
